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From the article: Amazon says that that the books in question were added to its catalog using the company's self-service platform by a third-party who did not

by andreyf 17y ago

From the article: Amazon says that that the books in question were added to its catalog using the company's self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. And it says it will no longer delete books in this manner. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances.

frossie 17y ago
If true, this is poor customer relations - they should have said that upfront, rather than just implying that the publisher changed their minds. And really, they should have just compensated the publisher and left the customers alone, since it was their mistake, not the customers'.
sailormoon 17y ago
"We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances." I would prefer "We are changing our systems so that in the future we can not remove books from customers' devices in any circumstances."
- reduxredacted 17y ago
  I'd prefer "We are adjusting our software in such a way that it is impossible for us to remove books from our customers' devices". I don't know that I'd trust the statement after the text-to-speech functionality adjustments on some titles, but it would be a start. Hey, it's software with compulsory updates via an uncontrollable backchannel. I was furious when I first read about this situation, despite not owning a Kindle (for this precise reason), but I understand the position that Amazon was in. Hopefully they vet their third parties better, or hopefully copyright law changes in such a way that it is actually possible to vet copyright owners better. Or maybe we just lose the classics because it's too difficult to figure out which heir or organization owns the intellectual property they didn't produce.

by andreyf 17y ago

frossie 17y ago

If true, this is poor customer relations - they should have said that upfront, rather than just implying that the publisher changed their minds. And really, they should have just compensated the publisher and left the customers alone, since it was their mistake, not the customers'.

sailormoon 17y ago

"We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances." I would prefer "We are changing our systems so that in the future we can not remove books from customers' devices in any circumstances."

reduxredacted 17y ago
I'd prefer "We are adjusting our software in such a way that it is impossible for us to remove books from our customers' devices". I don't know that I'd trust the statement after the text-to-speech functionality adjustments on some titles, but it would be a start. Hey, it's software with compulsory updates via an uncontrollable backchannel. I was furious when I first read about this situation, despite not owning a Kindle (for this precise reason), but I understand the position that Amazon was in. Hopefully they vet their third parties better, or hopefully copyright law changes in such a way that it is actually possible to vet copyright owners better. Or maybe we just lose the classics because it's too difficult to figure out which heir or organization owns the intellectual property they didn't produce.