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Ignorance of e-books is no excuse for the Orwellian zap: Why Jeff Bezos just might be the McTeague of publishing
July 20, 2009 | 4:31 am
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By David Rothman
Lest you think that we have party lines here at TeleRead, just read Paul Biba’s thoughtful essay below where he depicts Amazon as a dumb giant who happens to do evil things because it doesn’t understand e-books.
I disagree somewhat. Not everything about Amazon is evil—the company has its positives, such letting readers speak up in customer reviews—but it undeniably does do evil things. Jeff Bezos and crew are systematically trying to take over the publishing industry the way John D. Rockefeller dominated the oil business. To give one example, do you really think Amazon is oblivious to the usefulness of ePub as a consumer format? Hell no. In fact, Jeff’s crew led the IDPF to believe that the Kindle would go with ePub. Then, in the spirit Gordon Gekko (“Greed is good”), Amazon tried to herd customers into its own proprietary Kindle format. Now the word from Amazon is that it may be open to other formats for the Kindle, including, I’d hope, ePub. But so far no announcements.
Accident not
Similarly we’re not talking about accidents when Amazon builds into the Kindle operation the ability to remotely zap books that customers have already bought. This happened partly because Amazon wanted to pander to the control freaks in the publishing trade—with whom Jeff empathized, being one himself.
Even if Paul is right, even if Jeff and his managers really don’t mean to be mean, I’m reminded of McTeague, the dumb brute in the Frank Norris novel who lusts first after a young woman, then her money. His stupidity and drunkenness do not absolve him of guilt. The results are lethal for Trina and apparently for “Mac” McTeague, who ends up in the middle of Death Valley handcuffed to a dead man. A metaphor for the book business if Jeff and his ilk prevail over rivals and can’t exercise more self-control? Might Jeff just happen to be the McTeague of publishing?
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Comments:
Nobody was ever up in arms when the Kindle was released and it had a feature that allowed customers to return ebook? When the customer wants a refund, Amazon has the ability to give back the money and take back the book. However, most, if not all other ebook sites, state up front that an ebook sale is permanent. Isn’t the ability to return a mistaken ebook purchase a good thing? The only question is, should Amazon be allowed to instigate returns?
Let’s look at the problem. An illegal book gets into the store and sold: the copyright holder wants it removed, and few people would say it was wrong for Amazon to remove it from further sales. But what people who already bought it? Amazon could do a few things.
1. (A) Allow people to keep the illegal copies and (B) continue to allow further downloads to additional Kindles owned by purchaser. RESULTS: Copyright holders unhappy with (A) but would probably say that (B) can’t be allowed because Amazon would need to keep illegal copies in the database.
2. (A) Allow people to keep the illegal copies but (C) disallow future downloads. RESULTS: Customers who were allowed to keep illegal copy will become upset when they can’t transfer the copy to a different Kindle.
Anyway you look at it Amazon is going to take a hit on illegal books. They have to remove them from the store and database, so someone somewhere is going to raise a stink. I’m interested to see what the new policy will be and who won’t like it.
The funny thing is, the refund and removal process was good enough for Harry Potter, Ayn Rynd, and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Why no brouhaha then?
If anyone is to blame for the Orwellian fiasco, I’d pick not evil or cluelessness, but lawyers. The lawyers are probably the ones who probably thought it was safer to use the vague “There is a problem with your purchase…” email instead of an up front statement of fact “The book you bought was an illegal pirate edition and we must remove it from our store and database. Subsequently, it must also be deleted from your Kindle.” If the communication has been better, I think the horse wouldn’t have run far in this race.
Ultimately, I think the problem here is that Amazon is trying to be all things to all people. As long as they allow individuals or companies to self publish works without any sort of review, this problem is going to continue to come up. Granted, other sites have issues with allowing people to self publish — the other sites however only control the source, not the destination where the book is downloaded.
If amazon wants to keep selling the Kindle, it will need to be a better watch dog of the books sold for the Kindle, if it wants to be an open book seller, it needs to stop trying to sell devices it can control.
David says:
“…but it undeniably does do evil things…”
Evil!?!?! Really??? Engage in hyperbole much David?
Words do have meaning you know. Hitler was evil. Bezos is obviously no Hitler nor is he even a Gordon Gekko.
Paul’s post the other day summed things up very nicely and probably very accurately. Running a large corporation is going to involve the occasional misstep, screwup, accident, etc. Bureaucracy (which ain’t just a government thing either!!) can be a difficult beast to steer.
Hi, Greg and HG and Bill. Thanks for speaking up and here’s my response.
1. Greg, Amazon didn’t HAVE to wipe out those books on customers’ machines. As I noted, Amazon should stop pandering to control-freak publishers. I love the self-serve aspects of Amazon when they work. I don’t want that changed, except to be improved. I’m just ecstatic that Amazon did its mischief on Orwell’s books, where the matter would get the widespread attention it deserved. Irony level is a legitimate consideration for editors.
2. HG, I’d say that wiping out books–without customers’ consent–IS evil. It is not Hitler-level evil. But it is still no joke to that poor high schooler in New Jersey who lost his notes. Just one example!
3. Bill M, hasn’t Amazon already claimed to be backing off from its yank-back-the-book approach? I don’t envy the PR department of any publisher dumb enough to insist on the vanishing-book capability.
Thanks,
David