Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle

New York Times ^ | July 18, 2009 | BRAD STONE

[nickcarraway]

In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”

On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.

In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.

An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “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,” he said.

Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.

Customers whose books were deleted indicated that MobileReference, a digital publisher, had sold them. An e-mail message to SoundTells, the company that owns MobileReference, was not immediately returned.

Digital books bought for the Kindle are sent to it over a wireless network. Amazon can also use that network to synchronize electronic books between devices — and apparently to make them vanish.

An authorized digital edition of “1984” from its American publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, was still available on the Kindle store Friday night, but there was no such version of “Animal Farm.”

People who bought the rescinded editions of the books reacted with indignation, while acknowledging the literary ironies involved. “Of all the books to recall,” said Charles Slater, an executive with a sheet-music retailer in Philadelphia,

[papasmurf]

A Brand New KINDLE! - $300.00

Download Whole Books! - $.99

Amazon pwning YOU! - PRICELESS!!!

[zeugma]

How long does a copyright last?

In America, it's essentially, because neither congress nor the supreme Court understands what a "limted time" is. If you'd like to download a copy of 1984 and Animal farm, google "project gutenberg Australia". Apparently the copyright laws are sane down under.

[Oztrich Boy]

Short answer: a mininum of X years after publication, where X is the number of years since the release of Steamboat Willie

[Elsie]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eerily familiar...

Party ownership of the print media
made it easy to manipulate public opinion,
and the film and radio carried the process further.

 

 

16. Ministry Of Truth

.......

The Ministry of Truth, Winston's place of work, contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below.

The Ministsry of Truth concerned itself with Lies. Party ownership of the print media made it easy to manipulate public opinion, and the film and radio carried the process further.

The primary job of the Ministry of Truth was to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programmes, plays, novels - with every conceivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling-book to a Newspeak dictionary.

Winston worked in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT (a single branch of the Ministry of Truth) editing and writing for The Times. He dictated into a machine called a speakwrite. Winston would receive articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, in Newspeak, rectify. If, for example, the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus, and in reality the result was grossly less, Winston's job was to change previous versions so the old version would agree with the new one. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs - to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance.

When his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. He dialed 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to rectify.

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and on the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of The Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconsicious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.

What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead.

In the cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the Press the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed. And this hall, with its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one-sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs.

There were huge printing-shops and their sub editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the tele-programmes section with its engineers, its producers and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices; clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall; vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored; and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed.

And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence.

---

[MrsEmmaPeel]

How long does a copyright last?

Life of the author + 50 years.

[Elsie]

But, I hate active devices that can have stuff deleted from them remotely without my involvement.

Then you'll not be too happy with your new GM product with OnStar®.

[Elsie]

Amazon can access your device w/o your permission!

Oh?

Did you REALLY read the FINE PRINT before you clicked I ACCEPT?

[Elsie]

It mounts like an external USB device on your computer.

And then downloads what kind of malware?

[discostu]

Since I’ve never even bothered to test drive a GM, and OnStar isn’t even on my list of top 10 reason for avoiding GM, I think I’m safe.

[Elsie]

That’s ok, for if you have Verizon cell phone, you can GOOGLE map your path!

[discostu]

Or you can just live in the same city since Ford was in the White House and be no longer capable of getting lost. I know it’s low tech, but it’s effective.

[Cyber Liberty]

“Atlas Shrugged” is gone.

[Cyber Liberty]

What’s the deal?

I can’t find simple titles, like “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “Atlas Shrugged” at Amazon? I noticed this a while ago, and it just seems odd to me these particular titles are not there.

(I downloaded the PDF files for free, so I have them.)

[nickcarraway]

Books like Atlas Shrugged, Animal Farm, and 1984 are dangerous books. They might make people think.

[FrogMom]

Question, since you all own Kindles, maybe one of you (or all) can answer.

When FrogDad and I are about to take a road trip, I’ll download (File - Save) articles from FR or wherever to a folder. Then drop them on my iPAQ for reading to him while we mosey on down the road.

Can you do that with the Kindle?

[Ramius]

Maybe. Kindles can read pdf files and ebooks, and while I’ve never tried it, probably flat text files as well.

Each Kindle has an email address. You can email an attachment (as PDF or eBook) and it’ll load up in a kindle just fine. Have done this.

Does that help?

[FrogMom]

I’ve read Amazons Faqs and looked through the forums. Guess I’m looking for someone who has tried it.

[TChris]

Can you do that with the Kindle?

You can email documents to your Kindle as well as convert them to be readable on it. I'm sure that's possible.