[governance] Amazon Allegedly Deletes Customer's Kindle; Incident Triggers Discussion About Ebooks, DRM

[Riaz K Tayob]

  Amazon Allegedly Deletes Customer's Kindle; Incident Triggers
  Discussion About Ebooks, DRM

Posted: 10/22/2012 4:36 pm EDT Updated: 10/22/2012 4:41 pm

Linn's story, which appeared on Bekkelund's blog on Monday, has already 
triggered a heated discussion 
<http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/11vz4g/amazon_closes_womans_account_and_wipes_her_kindle/> 
about ebooks and digital rights management (DRM), with some calling this 
Amazon incident an example of DRM at its worst.

"[The incident] highlights the power [DRM] offers blue-chip companies 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-customers-kindle-deletes-account>. 
DRM is used by hardware manufacturers and publishers to limit the use of 
digital content once it has been purchased by consumers; in Amazon's 
case, it means the company can prevent you from reading content you have 
bought at the Kindle store on a rival device," the Guardian writes.

This is not the first time that Amazon has remotely erased Kindle content.

As Andy Boxall of Digital Trends 
<http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/amazon-account-ban-reminds-us-drm-content-is-only-rented/> 
notes, the company deleted copies of "Animal Farm" and "1984" 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html> 
in 2009. It also occured in 2010, "when more dubious titles were removed 
too." 
<http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related-erotica-titles-from-store-kindle-archive/>

"Amazon should not be able to erase content that has already been 
downloaded 
<http://consumerist.com/2012/10/22/amazon-erases-customers-kindle-wishes-her-luck-in-finding-somewhere-else-to-shop/>. 
If the company wants to close your account, fine; refuse future 
downloads. But unless it has proof that the books on that Kindle had 
been fraudulently downloaded, we don't see how the company can justify 
erasing content that had been paid for by a customer," the Consumerist 
notes, adding that Amazon had yet to respond to a request for comment.

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