Amazon has major PR disaster on it's hands

[Jinx999]

Amazon Wipes Customer's Kindle and Deletes Accountt
There's a lot of reports, but they all link back to a single blog, which is getting a lot of hits. But I do recall a correction to the extent that the victim's kindle broke down, and Amazon "merely" deleted her account and the backup there.
Exactly what happened will have to wait until the smoke clears. If we've got the whole story, then Amazon's got some splainin to do.
A bit more detail here.

[Logan Darklighter]

^ That pretty much sums up my attitude about kindle and anything like it.

[khagler]

Here's the original blog post, which is indeed rather overloaded and sporadically available:

http://www.bekkelund.net/.../outlawed-by-amazon-drm/

This sort of thing is simple enough to avoid if you remove the DRM from your ebook purchases and back them up somewhere you control (such as a Calibre library). Unfortunately backups are poor at best (and often nonexistent) for most people, and to complicate matters it's illegal in the US to tell someone how to remove DRM, where the servers for most ebook forums reside.

[DHBirr]

About a year and a half ago, my sister and her family bought me an e-book reader for my birthday:  I don't recall if it was Kindle or what.  Unfortunately, they hadn't gotten my input on the topic.  Then, at dinner, before I opened my presents, the subject of e-books came up, and I made it very clear that I didn't care for the idea.  I didn't notice the mortified silence on their part.  The mortified silence on my part came when I opened the gift and discovered they'd given me what I'd just been verbally trashing.
Luckily, they'd saved the receipt.
If I were still in the Army, I might go for e-books as a way to travel light -- although a lot of what I like to read is obscure enough these days that it's unlikely to be available in e-form (that was one of my main reasons for disliking the notion).  But then again, with reports like this, maybe I wouldn't.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

[LynnInDenver]

I like the idea of eReaders... but Amazon ensured years ago I would not buy a Kindle when they did that mass remote deletion of George Orwell's 1984 in response to the fact that the vendor actually didn't have the rights to do a digital release of the title.

I do have an eReader now. It's a Nook 1st Edition. I got it when my mom upgraded to a Nook SimpleTouch. I have yet to buy eBooks from B&N though. If I buy any, it will probably be via Baen (always been DRM free) or Tor (just went DRM free this year).
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[Bluemage]

If I want to do e-books, I'll use my tablet... and I'll do it with DRM-free files, also stored on my PC.  Being tied to a single marketplace is no good, and (aside from e-paper), most e-readers are inferior for anything but books.

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Sweno]

well it looks like either amazon realized they screwed up somewhere along the line (either in their handleing of the issue, or of the halting of the account in the first place) and have re-instated her account:

the computerworlduk article says:

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Update @ 23:55 - Linn just contacted me to say her account has been mysteriously re-activated and she's busily downloading her books. Hopefully Amazon will have more news for us all soon. Even positive arbitrary actions disclose how much Kindle customers read only with the grace of Amazon, of course...

-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Bob Schroeck]

Good for her.

I have a Kindle, but I use it almost exclusively for fanfiction and public-domain ebook files. I think I've bought maybe three books from Amazon for it in the two years I've had it.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

So, what's good on Kobo?

(I discovered a few weeks ago that my tablet has a Kobo app...)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012