Outlawed by Amazon DRM

Yes, you are absolutely right. Of course there is a clause allowing them to do whatever they feel like with the books you get from them.

I like the duality you've pointed out. They sure would love for a copy to qualify as property when determining punitive damages.

It would be great to have legislation and precise definitions for digital rentals and purchases, so that your rental term or purchased content cannot be rescinded arbitrarily. And I think it would be great to have stronger legal restrictions on removing or altering content, or running software on a device when its renter or owner does not wish for that to occur.

I am curious: could a story like this happen in the United States?

According to my reading of the legal case (I am not a lawyer, but it would be interesting if any of you are could comment - grellas, perhaps) regarding Amazon's remote deletion of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, the settlement involving that case appears to protect what happened in this story from happening to users in the United States.

Of course, it goes without saying that I do not agree with how things went down in this story, where a person has absolutely no recourse with Amazon, with the proverbial door completely shut in their face. However, I find it interesting that, again, according to my interpretation of the aforementioned settlement, it appears that Kindle units that are purchased and used in the United States are afforded special protections by law from what specifically happened in the story (i.e., the settlement outlines very specific cases where remote deletion can occur, but they do not appear to apply with regard to what happened in the story).

Is my reading of this correct? If so, why aren't all Kindle owners afforded this protection?

Here is the citation from the settlement [1]:

"For copies of Works purchased pursuant to TOS granting "the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy" of each purchased Work and to "view, use and display [such Works] an unlimited number of times, solely on the [Devices] . . . and solely for [the purchasers'] personal, non-commercial use," Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless

(a) the user consents to such deletion or modification;

(b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment);

(c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or

(d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device).

This paragraph does not apply to

(a) applications (whether developed or offered by Amazon or by third parties), software or other code;

(b) transient content such as blogs; or

(c) content that the publisher intends to be updated and replaced with newer content as newer content becomes available. With respect to newspaper and magazine subscriptions, nothing in this paragraph prohibits the current operational practice pursuant to which older issues are automatically deleted from the Device to make room for newer issues, absent affirmative action by the Device user to save older issues."

[1] http://assets.bizjournals.com/cms_media/pdf/KindleCase1.pdf?...

I'm one of the ones to leap out of the woodwork and shout that copying is not theft, so it's only fair that I point out this; torrenting is a massive copyright violation, as you are basically republishing the content. What Amazon did in this case is not against copyright, and the user had no claim to copyright of that work anyway.

Make no mistake; I disagree with the humongous damages leveled against torrenters and I would be dead set against allowing an ISP to redirect or disconnect a user.

But Amazon doing something they claimed rights to in their ToS and sharing a copyrighted work via torrent are quite different.

Nah, you just sue in Norway. Might be expensive for Amazon to defend, but that's their problem.

More specifically: Norway is part of the Brussels regime for determining jurisdiction to sue ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_Regime ). So this applies:

A consumer may bring proceedings against the other party to a contract either in the courts of the Contracting State in which that party is domiciled or in the courts of the Contracting State in which he is himself domiciled.

And no, companies can't escape it by putting a jurisdiction clause in a consumer contract. Consumer protection law trump contract terms. If Amazon want to do business in a country, they have to abide by the consumer laws of that country.

(I am not a lawyer).

Yep. counter thump your way to the top, then hit whatever small claims will have you. I can't imagine any court will side with a retailer deleting purchases without adequate excuse.

Also, actually writing letters is a great idea, I find it gets much more attention than filling a web form or firing off a hasty email. When you lick that stamp you're showing a company you're willing to put some effort in.