Once again, more evidence that digital media should gotten the old fashioned way. Piracy. Amazon can't delete books I've downloaded, and I can lend them to people.

Yeah, Big Brother is something to worry about. Too bad SciFi Wire has learned the opposite lesson from the book than the rest of us.

"But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless."

One thing that keeps getting missed in all of the bruhaha over this is that the two books were illegal copies. The publisher that posted them deals with public domain books, but both 1984 and Animal Farm are not in the public domain yet.

A good analogy would be if you went and bought a car and then find out that it was a stolen car that was sold illegally. They are going to take that car away from you, because it isn't yours. You may be able to get money back from the person who sold it to you (if they're not in jail waiting arraignment for grand theft auto).

In the amazon case, no one lost anything (except for the poor kid who lost his book report, and the only thing I can say is backup your work). Amazon refunded the money the people who bought the books paid, essentially resetting things to the way they were before the illegal volumes got posted.

I say Stick It To The Man.....Power to the Pirates...err..People. Give me liberty, and while you're at it give me free stuff...and pay me for the privilege of taking it off your hands.....you can vex with me after, no worries.

Never mind the apology, publishing the method to remove the big brother abilities would be the correct thing to do.

I think a lot of this DRM stuff will come to a head at some point. How much control is too much control? Over the years, peoples investments in virtual products like e-books, music, and download only video games are reaching into thousands of dollars. A simple policy change or service going offline can completely screw you out of stuff you paid for. Maybe I am just old, but I still am not completely comfortable with not having a physical copy.

It's not that amazon was correcting a mistake. It's that there was a delete key existed in the first place that kindle users weren't told about, didn't approve of and had no say in the matter. This is like if a store incorrectly sells a book before it's release date, realizes it's mistake and then breaks into your home and removes the book from your nightstand. Leaving the 20 bucks it cost you to buy the book.

When I buy a product it should be mine, completely. To have, to hold, to keep, to alter, to lend to others.

I wonder when books on the Kindle will start being changed without the users knowledge for typos as well.

Wow- this story is weeks old and you're just getting around to this?

cpt1nsano: you just turn off the wireless. Keep it off unless you're shopping. When you''ve finished reading your "banned" book, turn the wireless back on, let Amazon delete and refund your money. Then pat yourself on the back for reading a book for free and sticking it to the man.

The fact that the book was not supposed to be sold is not the issue. The issue is simply, nothing you buy is truly yours.

If at some point Kindle decides to close up shop and send a signal to delete every book you've ever purchased, they can do that and there is nothing you can do to stop them. That is on par with cyberterrorism and the idea of "thought police".

If you want to read or learn something and go so far as to purchase what you want, is it truly yours to keep or have you shelled out money for nothing?

Hey, once Obama has appointed the behavior czar then all our thoughts can be controlled and SyFy can stop erasing our posts because every form of media will be in our dictator's hands. (Hmmm.... Maybe that means job security for SyFy)

Wow, freedom was a nice idea but I guess we can try dictators

FSkornia, an ebook and a car are two different matters entirely. When a car get sold legally, it is generally stolen, or considered stolen. A car has a title. Besides, they still don't break into your garage and take the car back.

a better analogy would be the case when a bookstore sells a book before it's specified release date (which happened to one or more of the Harry Potter books I believe). The bookstore, nor the publisher, breaks into your house and takes the book back. Generally, the bookstore would be sued by the publisher for breaking the contract.

The real issue is that Amazon has a way to delete items from a kindle without the purchaser's knowledge or consent. They also violated their own terms of service. What should have happened is they should have left the Kindles alone, and the individual who made the ebooks available for sale should be sued.

Time to rethink buying any device that allows third party access to the contents it stores. Don't buy devices that do so, or at least wait until a hacker has "fixed" the problem.

Amazon should be sued

oops, that should be

When a car get sold illegally...

It's reasons like this that keep pirates freely copying everything. Not just price raping. And just today I had the same conversation about privacy & Big Brother in the digital cloud. This is why I choose my hardwares & softwares very carefully, make backups, & use encryption. And the problem is too many people are becoming complacent with their rights being slowly eaten away. For F*&! sakes, the Patriot Act is still alive, well, & renewed only 1-2 yrs ago! On that point, F*&! AT&T, the other carriers & US gov't for their privacy invasion. & yes, the email required for this post is an anon/spam acct b/c there's no valid rason to require it. If Dvice is concerned about comments, then moderate or auto-filter. Feh. I end my ranting here & bid you all a goodnight

It's reasons like this that keep pirates freely copying everything. Not just price raping. And just today I had the same conversation about privacy & Big Brother in the digital cloud. This is why I choose my hardwares & softwares very carefully, make backups, & use encryption. And the problem is too many people are becoming complacent with their rights being slowly eaten away. For F*&! sakes, the Patriot Act is still alive, well, & renewed only 1-2 yrs ago! On that point, F*&! AT&T, the other carriers & US gov't for their privacy invasion. & yes, the email required for this post is an anon/spam acct b/c there's no valid rason to require it. If Dvice is concerned about comments, then moderate or auto-filter. Feh. I end my ranting here & bid you all a goodnight

I've preached about Big Bro for years to my kids. They told me they didn't want to hear about it anymore. I'm 60, they're 30ish. Young people just don't GAS about their rights at all. I feel sorry for kids today, the "Patriot Act" has just about killed all of the fun in this once great country ! BTW, I'm a USMC combat vet, and this type of thing hurts me deeply.

That is what happens when you buy these kinds of things! Give me a good, old fashioned book any day. Syfy(lus) needs to STOP advertizing for this idiotic thing.

Riggarob:

I'm younger than you, but I still know what you are saying. Young americans don't protect their rights or even care about them anymore. We will never see the demonstrations like what went down in the 60's. The people vote for their puppets & then just pull the wool over their own eyes nowadays.

I would much rather read a physical book than download one anyway. Not to mention you are paying a huge premium for this 'privilege'. It takes me a millisecond to flip open my book where it's bookmarked.

How many books do you need to buy even to hit the break-even point? Before you answer that.... take into account the many book clubs out there, the Walmarts, and even the used copies on e-bay... I doubt you will every truly recoup the costs of the device.

What about that awesome 'old book smell' that you get up in your attic? You'll never get that from a kindle either.

One final point... what happens if/when we have a major global power problem? Internet goes down, an EMP blows out your data... I'll still have all MY books to read by the firelight... will you?

Digital books are not the problem. The problem is with the devices and thinking that when you buy legally you are completely safe. That's why I download any book from p2p nets and keep it safe in my PC, reading them in any windows mobile device, or palm, or iphone, you name it. They can reach our books there.

Hmm well if it is public domain, why are people having to buy it anyways?