Amazon, Kindle and Orwell - a baby sister tantrum people need to get over
So the news has been hot for the last week with the HORROR at Amazon's uber-ironic recall of George Orwell books from its Kindle e-reader devices. The beef? That they simply reached in and pulled that shit out of people's devices without so much as a by-your-leave, warning or request. They stole 1984 from Kindle users!
Well, no they didn't. Everyone was reimbursed. And all of this was only because Amazon had sort of stolen it in the first place. These works of Orwell had been mistakenly released to Kindle download without license. So, finding themselves accidentally in breach of some pretty vociferously applied laws, the Amazon crew ran a recall. A recall, which in this glorious digital age required little more than a flick of a switch and schhhhhhhkooop! All those infringing digital books were gone and the legal troubles with them.
Only then the consumer troubles began... People have been up in arms about this act of invasion by Amazon. “You RAPED my Kindle and burned my rights!” came the calls. Amazon's privacy invasion recalls Big Brother, right? These guys have watchtowers in our devices and they're like filthy O'Briens taking back whatever the feel fit. The whole thing's too delicious and dirty not to Delicious and Digg.
If you want a picture of the future imagine a Kindle pressing onto a human face - forever...
Dear god. It is SO not like that. It might be if you were living in a timewarp, or a bubble of hypocrisy. Oh wait...
This is so ridiculous. The people who so thrive upon, evangelise and espouse the beauties of freedoms that the Digital Revolution has provided – free content; file-sharing; music you can buy (or steal) with a mouse click; movies you can watch without ever walking near a cinema or DVD store; the books you can read without crossing the threshold of a bookstore...
You can't celebrate and bask in the digital age – scorn the Music Industry for getting it all so wrong; mock the Movies for losing the plot; yell that the newspapers are dying with French Revolutionary glee – THEN moan when this digital free spirit comes and bites you on the ass.
You don't even own anything on the Kindle anyway. You bought a license to read the intellectual property and rights protected writings of George Orwell; you didn't buy the rights themselves. Same way, when you buy a CD of music you have bought a piece of shiny plastic; not the music on it; same with the DVD – that movie ain't yours. If it WAS yours don't you think you'd be able to play it where-so-ever you damn well liked? I can't play my DVDs in America (region 1). Or China (region 6). Or on an oil rig for that matter (region 7 or 8 - it's unclear).
You don't own any of this crap. You never have. And now you don't even buy it wrapped in gatefold plastic, surely that makes it all the clearer. It's just data, and you're just accessing it under a strict set of permissions. So WHEN the guys who've granted you the license to play / watch / read a set of data realise that it was never theirs to let you read and they decide to remove the offending data from your Kindle, shall I tell you what it's NOT like: it's NOT like a bookstore breaking into your house and taking back a book you bought.
There was no bookstore. There was no bookstore guy. There was no bookshelf in your house. There was no book. There was just data.
You can't apply an analogue paradigm to a digital principle. Back in the analogue day you couldn't buy a book with the tap of a key on a Kindle and suddenly have the complete works of Emily Bronte on a handheld device at practically no cost. Back in the day, you'd be unlikely to buy a book that didn't have correct rights for your digital platform and have it recalled with the tap of a key. Swings and roundabouts, folks.
But it's Big Brother, Dan. The nanny state, but the nanny's packing a swag-bag and a burglar's mask!
Really? You don't want the instant recall? If an iPhone app was released and you bought it (you don't own that by the way, you have it under license), and it turned out to be crashing your phone – you'd want them to fix it, right? And they would. With the flick of a switch. (Apple have long been berated for having a 'kill switch' for iPhone apps – Big Brother Steve Jobs... What a crock. It makes complete sense to be able to remove bad data from a phone / ipod expediently. Get over it.)
If you bought a car and there was duff software messing up the balance or the breaking and they could just remove it immediately, remotely, without bothering you - making you safer - you'd want them to, right? You'd want them to tell you they'd done it afterwards, but for the sake of getting it done - just do it.
If you bought a digital book and the last page was missing you'd want them to add that last page with the flick of a switch – and they could. You don't end up like Tony Hancock; no, you get that missing page popped back in in version 1.2.
A few people downloaded data they shouldn't have (by accident); they had it taken away – as if it were a virus or malware (it WAS illegal on your Kindle). They were refunded. Get over it. We've been telling the music industry to get over the same shit – to find a new model, to pull its head out of its ass, well – here's our turn to grow up and realise where and WHEN we live.
Keep th' faith,
Article Dan
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