Amazon has been sued this week by 17-yr old Justin D. Gawronski, a high school student who says the e-tailer's controversial removal of George Orwell's classic 1984 e-book from Kindle readers caused him to lose all his notes he had taken on the book for an assignment at school.
The suit, if successful, will prevent Amazon from ever remotely deleting e-books from the Kindle. Gawronski is also seeking monetary damages for the lost work.
Amazon, for its part, has already refunded all buyers of the book, and CEO Jeff Bezos called the incident “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.”
Says Gawronski: “If there’s something that catches my eye as I am reading, I just place a note there”, using the Kindle's keypad. The notes were necessary because “every 100 pages we have to write a 1-page summary and reflection of everything that we read,” he added, via the WSJ.
When the book removed itself on July 20th, Amazon did not delete the notes file, but since the actual text was gone, Gawronski says "all my notes refer back to nothing. I can’t really use it for much.”
Adds his lawyer Jay Edelson, of KamberEdelson: “People are given license for life. You start to wonder how many companies have the ability to remote change data or delete things.”
Amazon, for its part, has already refunded all buyers of the book, and CEO Jeff Bezos called the incident “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.”
Says Gawronski: “If there’s something that catches my eye as I am reading, I just place a note there”, using the Kindle's keypad. The notes were necessary because “every 100 pages we have to write a 1-page summary and reflection of everything that we read,” he added, via the WSJ.
When the book removed itself on July 20th, Amazon did not delete the notes file, but since the actual text was gone, Gawronski says "all my notes refer back to nothing. I can’t really use it for much.”
Adds his lawyer Jay Edelson, of KamberEdelson: “People are given license for life. You start to wonder how many companies have the ability to remote change data or delete things.”
