Amazon settiles, closes book on Kindle "1984" lawsuit

The sturm und drang over Amazon's now-infamous deletion of copies of 1984 and other books from Kindle e-book devices has finally reached its epilogue (and, with any luck, is the last thing I'll have to write about the issue). The company has now settled the lawsuit brought against it over the issue, hopefully closing the book on the matter.

Justin Gawronski, a high school student, originally brought the suit against Amazon over the deletion of his copy of the book -- and the notes he'd entered into the Kindle alongside it.

Amazon's settlement includes payment of $150,000 in plaintiff's legal fees ($150,000 in legal fees over this!?), at least some of which will be donated to charity.

But the bigger news is that Amazon is pledging not to delete or modify downloaded works in the future, with a few exceptions. Amazon reserves the right to delete downloaded e-books only under the following circumstances: The user agrees to the deletion, the user doesn't pay for the content, some sort of malware attached to the content threatens the security of the device, or a court officially orders the deletion of the content.

Those guidelines seem perfectly reasonable to me, though some consumer rights advocates would probably prefer Amazon had no way to delete any content from a user's Kindle under any circumstance.

Despite the hefty payout, the settlement averts a far bigger potential problem, as Gawronski had been seeking class-action status for the lawsuit, something which would have created a far larger and more expensive problem for the company.

So, readers, are you satisfied with these results? Everyone cool with the Kindle once again?