Eric Blair died in January, 1950 (yes, over 59 years ago). But, his books are still covered by copyright (in the US) until 2044. Yup, for another 35 years. I was a promponent of using electronic books for schools until this story came out. Now, not only am I not going to be buying a Kindle or to tell the truth, any eBook reader. I'll just keep reading dead tree editions, and PDFs of authorized works. I have no problem with compensating authors and their duly designated agents. But, to see something like this (evidently, one of the causes for the ruckus is that Amazon's terms of service for the Kindle do not explicit grant Amazon the right to do this - cue the class action lawsuits) for an author (one of my most admired) who died over ten years before I was born elucidates the total absurdity that copyright has become in the United States.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Amazon and Kindle - 1984 reborn - how DRM will kill the eBook reader market
Wow. The ongoing stories about Amazon's incredibly arrogant arbitrary decision to delete books that their Kindle customers had purchased has really provided all opponents of DRM with a solid gold mace to use against DRM in totality. The story evidently began when a publisher complained to Amazon about a copyright dispute over the ownership of Eric Blair's (George Orwell for those of you who are republican idiots - yes I know; I repeated myself) works. So, the publisher said jump, and Amazon promptly went out and deleted the purchased book from a still indeterminate number of Kindles. Including a student who lost his notes and comments on the copy he was using for school.
Eric Blair died in January, 1950 (yes, over 59 years ago). But, his books are still covered by copyright (in the US) until 2044. Yup, for another 35 years. I was a promponent of using electronic books for schools until this story came out. Now, not only am I not going to be buying a Kindle or to tell the truth, any eBook reader. I'll just keep reading dead tree editions, and PDFs of authorized works. I have no problem with compensating authors and their duly designated agents. But, to see something like this (evidently, one of the causes for the ruckus is that Amazon's terms of service for the Kindle do not explicit grant Amazon the right to do this - cue the class action lawsuits) for an author (one of my most admired) who died over ten years before I was born elucidates the total absurdity that copyright has become in the United States.
Eric Blair died in January, 1950 (yes, over 59 years ago). But, his books are still covered by copyright (in the US) until 2044. Yup, for another 35 years. I was a promponent of using electronic books for schools until this story came out. Now, not only am I not going to be buying a Kindle or to tell the truth, any eBook reader. I'll just keep reading dead tree editions, and PDFs of authorized works. I have no problem with compensating authors and their duly designated agents. But, to see something like this (evidently, one of the causes for the ruckus is that Amazon's terms of service for the Kindle do not explicit grant Amazon the right to do this - cue the class action lawsuits) for an author (one of my most admired) who died over ten years before I was born elucidates the total absurdity that copyright has become in the United States.
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