Re: Re: Amazon, 1984, "I, Robot"

Daniel,

That is an outstanding comment on the situation. It is the battle over exactly how new technology is going to get used that may make this first decade of the 'public' net irelevant to the future.

Many arguments - pirates, Google - ignore the old fashioned ideas of right and wrong and trust, and concentrate on what can be done with the technology. This may not be surprising, since all 'advances' have seen great misuse initially. The evils of the first 100 plus years of the industrial revolution for example.

In a sense this incident - and what polished irony that the book is 1984 ;-) - may start the fightback for good practise and honourable behaviour.

I can hope!

Joseph

Joseph Harris  -  Debt Control Man
author: Control Your Debt Crisis on Your Own Terms
blog: http://debtcontrolman.wordpress.com
http://www.controlyourdebtcrisis.co.uk
debt dictionary: http://www.controlyourdebtcrisis.co.uk/debtwiki/

 
From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" <yahoogroups2006-wIRBk7EkA6JWk0Htik3J/[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 12:42 PM
Subject: [ebook-community] Re: Amazon, 1984, "I, Robot"


> Here's my understanding; let's assume for the sake of argument it's  
> correct. Amazon's managing tens of thousands of titles. An oldish but  
> famous book with complex copyright status was made available for sale  
> via a channel that hadn't secured proper rights. Probably because the  
> book was famous and of real commercial value, it got noticed. Amazon  
> cancelled the sale, and due to the electronic characteristics of the  
> sale was able to pull the book back, removing it from purchaser's  
> Kindles. Amazon promptly refunded the money, so purchasers are not  
> financially hurt. A small number of purchasers suffered a small  
> amount of annoyance and inconvenience.
> 
> This is a sort of Rorschach test.
> 
> If you view it as a pure consumer business issue, it's a molehill.  
> Amazon didn't do anything terrible.
> 
> What arouses indignation is that we're frogs sitting in a slowly- 
> heating cooking pot, and we've suddenly felt the twinge of pain.

..........
> 
> The question is not whether Amazon did something terribly injurious  
> to a few disappointed customers who thought they'd bought a bargain  
> book. It's not even comparable to (say) the injury suffered when an  
> online store cancels an order made at an erroneously-low price.
> 
> The question is the nature of a "sale" in the digital age, and  
> whether companies should be allowed to build devices with the sort of  
> ex-post-facto power the Kindle has to undo what, according the common  
> understanding of centuries, should have been irrevocable.
> 



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