Let's give Amazon the benefit of the doubt—its explanation for why it deleted some books from customers' Kindles actually sounds halfway defensible. Last week a few Kindle owners awoke to discover that the company had reached into their devices and remotely removed copies of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.
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I don't see how anyone can call this anything than what it is. Digital books are under the same copyright laws as printed books, which means Amazon has to get the rights to publish certain works to Kindle. 1984 isn't in the public domain and Amazon didn't check it to be sure the proper procedures were followed to publish it. It might be somewhat ironic that its happening to 1984, but if Orwell was alive today he'd be backing Amazon 100% on this. It's his paycheck, after all.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you reading 1984 on a computer screen anyway?
I can't believe anybody tried to read Atlas Shrugged, an over-1000-page behemoth, on a Kindle.
ReplyDeleteGood points.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of the kindle, but you cant replace the feeling of the book in your hands, the smell of it, the hours of enjoyment browsing through bookshelves at home for forgotten treasures. I just bought 'Nordic gods and heroes' by Padraic Colum, illustrated by Willy Pogany. Totally awesome, and wouldnt really translate in digital form i dont think.
I want my kids to be able to search through dusty old shelves on rainy days for books like this.
Plus, there's no replacing that stale cigarette smell you get from a book you bought at the Goodwill.
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