Now, let's say, you walk into a bookshop and buy a book, and the bookshop finds out that the distributor does not have the rights to sell the book in this territory. Does this give the bookshop the right to come into your house and steal the book back?This is roughly what Amazon did. Buyers who bought the digital copy of George Orwell's 1984, were not aware that the copies they were buying were not meant for their territory. When Amazon found out that the copies were 'illegal', they activated a Kindle kill-switch to delete all downloaded copies from their customers' Kindles -- now you see it, now you don't.
Okay, the copies were illegal. But that does not mean Amazon can simply erase them. The customers didn't know, for God's sake. They could have been notified, offered a legal alternative copy, or asked them if they'd like a refund. Instead, they pulled the kill-switch. It is scary to think that Amazon even has a kill-switch. Gosh, who else has got one? Microsoft? Google? Adobe? In fact, any company that insist on online registration is now suspect, as far as I am concerned.
This was the apology:
This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.
With deep apology to our customers,
Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO, Amazon.com
Cnet
No comments:
Post a Comment