New York Times on Amazon 1984 controversy
The New York Times has an article looking at the controversy caused by Amazon’s recent removal and refund of an illicit copy of 1984. The removal sparked an angry backlash and a number of discussions in e-book forums across the Internet that still continue even now.
On one side are people who hold that, since the book was sold by a publisher who did not have the right to do so, Amazon had every right to remove it.
“Because copyright infringement was poor and lax in the offline world, it should also be that way in the online world? I don’t understand that logic,” [Randal C. Picker, a law professor at the University of Chicago] said. “The whole point of moving online is that it creates new opportunities.”
Others point out that having the ability to remove works means that Amazon might later be forced to remove works through legal or governmental action. The removal of 1984 was entirely voluntary on Amazon’s part (an action for which Jeff Bezos subsequently apologized).
One final interesting note has to do with Justin Gawronski, the high school student whose study notes on 1984 were removed when Amazon removed the book. His plight has been used as a rallying cry in a number of the discussions I have seen about the issue: Amazon didn’t just remove an illicit e-book, they destroyed his work. But the people using him in their arguments seem more upset about it than Justin is:
“I’d like to live in a perfect world where I own this content and can do whatever I want with it,” said Justin Gawronski, a high school student whose copy of “1984” was erased by Amazon, but who recently declined when a lawyer asked him to join a class-action lawsuit over the incident. Mr. Gawronski said, “This is probably going to happen again and we just have to learn to live with it.”
July 31st, 2009 at 2:12 am
The Wall St. Journal points out lower down in their article yesterday that ‘Amazon didn’t delete the file containing Gawronski’s notes on the Kindle device. But since the book text “no longer exists, all my notes refer back to nothing,” he said. “I can’t really use it for much.’
Len Edgerly did an addendum on the notes-situation last week and has tweeted that Justin Gawronski is one of his guests for the Podcast tonight (Friday).