From: Jim Duron
Location: Prairieville, La
Date: 08/26/2009
Greg,
Read that Amazon removed Animal Farm and 1984 from all Kindles after they were purchased as though they never were sold. Seems even if you buy a e-book it is just a rental if the publisher changes it's mind.
The writer went on to ask what if a book is banned like Satanic Verses and there are no longer hard copies do we lose a piece of literature or just a chunk of our freedom.
Do you understand the E-Book Rules?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9135678/Opinion_Amazon_Removes_E_Books_From_Kindle_Store?source=toc
From: Greg Bear
Date: 08/28/2009
All interesting questions. There are a number of "publishers" who download public domain books from sites like Project Gutenberg (also Gutenberg Australia and Canada and others) and then gussy them up a bit and sell them for a low fee on the Kindle store. Some of these are worthwhile--complete collections of author such as Dickens for a couple of dollars, for example.
Interestingly, 1984 is in the public domain in Australia, but not in the U.S. That may have been the start of this interesting dilemma. I'm sure Amazon has reworked its policies, and is going through its catalogs more diligently. Kindle only works in the U.S., and therefore must respect U.S. copyrights.
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