Amazon ate my homework: Kindle kid sues over deleted notes

Tue Aug 4, 2009 4:57PM EDT

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Amazon continues to face criticism and anger over its decision to delete books offered for sale for the Kindle e-reader, placed there by individuals who didn't have the rights to sell the texts in the first place. Part of the problem -- aside from the obvious concerns that Amazon badly overstepped its authority by deleting the books without warning -- is that Amazon didn't just delete the books in question when it clicked "undo" on all those sales. It also deleted whatever notes and annotations the reader might have associated with the disappeared novels.

That's a problem for Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old who was studying 1984 for a summer English class and had all his notes deleted during the e-book purge. Gawronski is now filing suit against Amazon. His attorney, Jay Edelson, says that he appreciates the apologies Amazon has made for the incident, but that "Amazon.com had no more right to hack into people's Kindles than its customers have the right to hack into Amazon's bank account to recover a mistaken overpayment."

Edelson is seeking to take the suit to class action status, though it's unclear how many people were actually damaged by Amazon's decision to delete the books. Few people actually bought the books in question, and even fewer people use the Kindle for any sort of note-taking.

Gawronski is asking for financial damages as well as an injunction that would prevent Amazon from remotely deleting material from users' Kindles in the future, though Amazon has already intimated that it will no longer be taking such actions and will instead find alternative avenues to ensure it is selling only legal and authorized content. Edelson also says he's not looking for a quick buck here, saying instead that he'll donate any money received from the suit to a charity.

Who will prevail? It's tough to say: Amazon probably had a legal right and even some responsibility to delete the books the way it did, but perhaps not the notes written by its users about those books. But what is the value of a few notes about a book jotted down as part of school coursework (where financial damages can't actually be measured)? Based on the quality of the notes I took in high school, not a whole lot.

Comments on Amazon ate my homework: Kindle kid sues over deleted notes

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  • 1 Posted by dcsoccer25 on Tue Aug 4, 2009 5:28PM EDT Report Abuse

    Perhaps he had serious notes on the book though, Chris. Maybe not everyone was a slacker like you. I jest, but seriously. Perhaps he'd take it out to read and leave important notes to himself as he read. I know how important a single book report can be to a class; I failed an English class once myself due to a mistake on the teachers part. To lose a significant amount of notes close to a deadline could be extremely detrimental. Failing a class can have a serious impact on college entrance.

  • 2 Posted by chlyonsiv on Tue Aug 4, 2009 5:30PM EDT Report Abuse

    I love the fact that, once I buy a real book, you have to break into my house to take it away. The fact that Amazon can at any point decide to delete my Kindle books bothers me. I don't care that they say they won't do that any more. It is the fact that they already have done it once, and that power resides within their system. This makes the Kindle a hard sell for me.

  • 3 Posted by nohjy1 on Tue Aug 4, 2009 6:47PM EDT Report Abuse

    Hey chlyonsiv good point but what makes the kindle a hard sell for me is the huge price tag on an electronic device that has almost as many new versions as the iphone. Not to mention that if i buy a hardcopy book after I'm done I can dontae it to my local library, ( dont know about yours but mine has more romances than a harlequin convention).

  • 4 Posted by earthtonegirl on Tue Aug 4, 2009 8:03PM EDT Report Abuse

    I may be a fool, but I do know how to spell "wonder", "coming" and "burying". This probably will not help me steal one of those choice janitorial jobs back from an immigrant. I must admit, though, that as a liberal, I do sure enjoy my eggs. I wasn't aware those two things were related. Also, I am not entirely certain what Mr. Crockett intends for me to do with my phone, but I will keep it at hand just in case.

  • 5 Posted by alan_r_cam on Tue Aug 4, 2009 9:02PM EDT Report Abuse

    earthtonegirl, kudos to you. However, as an egg-seller I must point out that it's not "liberals" but "liberials" who are the best customers. * - - - - - * As for the Kindle- even if Amazon had the right / obligation to delete the book, the "notes" you make are your own Intellectual Property. As such, they should be seperate from the book. IF the Kindle had been correctly designed, you could re-download a book you already paid for, and re-attach your notes from a linked file. Amazon screwed up the design and should pay for their folly.

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