After a tough day at work you climb into bed, reach for a paperback book, and find that your nightstand reading material is gone, replaced with a credit for the purchase price. After some digging you learn that paperback copies of the novel you’re in the middle of reading have been repossessed by your local bookshop. <\/p>\n
Inconceivable, right? Credit or no credit, invading the privacy of your home and taking a book without your permission would surely constitute one or more crimes. <\/p>\n
Now imagine the same scenario, but with an e-book instead of a paperback — an e-book you purchased for your Kindle. That’s exactly what Amazon did to 1984<\/em> and Animal Farm <\/em> buyers.<\/a> <\/p>\n Repossession via electronic invasion of privacy. If it isn’t a crime, it sure as hell ought<\/strong> to be.<\/p>\n Kindle Swindle? (3 Verse Limerick) Have you noticed your e-book list dwindle? Yet the seller invaded your house. The fact that your money’s returned. Update:<\/strong> Some updated information from the New York Times:<\/a><\/p>\n \nAn 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. \u201cWhen we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers\u2019 devices, and refunded customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. \u201cWe are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers\u2019 devices in these circumstances,\u201d Mr. Herdener said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Update 2:<\/strong> If you would like to read this political satire blog on your Kindle device, you can subscribe right here.<\/a><\/p>\n If you would like to read my other general humor blog on your Kindle reader you can subscribe right here.<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBy Madeleine Begun Kane<\/p>\n
\nYou’re probably using a Kindle.
\nA book that you bought
\nHas turned into naught —
\nReplaced with a refund. No swindle?<\/p>\n
\nAnd did it by clicking a mouse.
\nSomething’s there. Then it’s not.
\n(An Orwellian plot?)
\nYou’re surely entitled to grouse.<\/p>\n
\nDoesn’t mean that you haven’t been burned.
\nYour privacy rights
\nAre gone with those bytes.
\nThis vendor deserves to be spurned.<\/p>\n