The kid who sued Amazon for eating his homework just won in court, to the tune of $US150,000.
Yep, remember the kid who had his notes from George Orwell’s 1984 deleted along with Amazon’s mass eradication of the work from all Kindles? That little mofo just won in court, splitting a $US150,000 settlement with a co-plaintiff and the law firm, which will be donating its portion to charity.
As much as this sounds like a Disney live action film from the 1990s (you can just see Jeff Bezos portrayed caricature-like by Paul Giamatti, can’t you?), the real outcome is that Amazon no longer can just do what it wants to content on Kindles, just because it owns that content. According to the settlement:
Amazon will not remotely delete or modify such Works from Devices purchased and being used in the United States unless (a) the user consents to such deletion or modification; (b) the user requests a refund for the Work or otherwise fails to pay for the Work (e.g., if a credit or debit card issuer declines to remit payment); (c) a judicial or regulatory order requires such deletion or modification; or (d) deletion or modification is reasonably necessary to protect the consumer or the operation of a Device or network through which the Device communicates (e.g., to remove harmful code embedded within a copy of a Work downloaded to a Device).
TechFlash has more details and links to a ton of bonus legal mumbo jumbo, so check it out. [TechFlash]
glennc
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 12:37 PMonly in america
GGP
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 1:06 PMWhat? This is a great precedent to set, a company shouldn’t be able to do what Amazon did. Yeah $75k is a bit much for what happened, but at the same time the effort and money risked for this case to happen in the first place is part of the reason, plus Amazon would just throw the kid $1000 if that’s all it cost and keep it out of courts, while keeping their ability to remotely wipe stuff.
Jim
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 5:03 PMMaybe Amazon should now sue the Judge who handled this court case for $150,000.
Come on, the kid which is an easy mistake accidently deleted this homework or may have over written it is now $150,000 richer?
How did this even get tot he courts?
Peter
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 9:27 PMThe kid didn’t delete it. The kindle deleted it automatically because Amazon performed an automatic recall thanks to the fact they didn’t apparently have the rights to sell it. He lost all his school notes because of something Amazon shouldn’t have been able to do in the first place, regardless of the refunds paid out and the public apology.
Khuntza
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 10:02 PMWay to show no understanding of the stories history at all there Jim..
ajd4096
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 9:20 PM“harmful code”? By whose definition of harmful?
Would that include code which might be harmful Amazon’s bottom line, eg breaking DRM?