Amazon and the Concept of Ownership

[thomtg]

What is the relationship of ownership? What is the right to own property? How do property rights translate to e-books? These are some of the questions raised by the latest action by Amazon.com to "revoke your (electronic) purchase ex post facto". (Hat tip, Twitter EditingWrite)

If I take property rights as a moral principle to use and dispose material wealth, I consider the company's action to be an act of outright theft. What do you think?

[Steve Gagne]

From what you describe, I would have to agree. But I haven't run into this. What exactly happened for you to bring up the subject?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Thom,

We are right in the middle of the Information Revolution and Amazon is straddling legislation that has one foot in the Industrial Age and the other in here-and-now trying to deal with current advances in informatics.

This subject is vastly more complex than it seems. One thing is for certain. When people talk about ownership of an electronic file on a system maintained by a third party, they are talking about some gray areas by default. The article you linked to laments the ownership of the purchaser, but what of the ownership of the author's estate?

Copyright law is supposed to protect the right to copy a work. But the entire Internet is based on copy. It doesn't run without it. For you to read this post, your computer has to copy it.

What's more, there is no physical product that gets taken from the owner for a sale like with a physical printed book. So what kind of copy is being held by law as a right?

Amazon refunded the money for the electronic books that was sold then canceled, so there was no monkey-business of that nature that went on. I, for one, am in agreement with what it did.

The article strategically left out that electronic files are much, much, much cheaper than the printed book. I wonder why?

Amazon is one of the forces changing the face of the world as we know it. If it has to make some strange decisions at times to accommodate older laws, I have no doubt these decisions are based on cost/benefit analyses, not on any intent to stick it to the customer later. If the headache were not so great, I believe it would have gone to court over this.

Believe it or not, electronic transfer across jurisdictions is another force changing the face of the world. (I hesitate to call this piracy, although much of it is, because of the different jurisdictions involved.) If anyone is disgruntled at losing the electronic file from Kindle, there are any number of torrent sites (as just one resource) he can get it for free.

Unless he goes overboard and starts downloading millions of books, nobody will bother him.

The mashup concept is another interesting area of the Information Revolution.

Michael

[Christopher]

Michael,

Although I value your position here and am likely to agree with it, I am not entirely sure I could adopt your position (of gray areas) quite yet. I think first and foremost, we need to understand the contract between Amazon and the buyer of the electronic book to understand whether Amazon's followup action is lawful. Usually data exchanges and purchases do have stated explicit terms, whereas purchasing a book at a bookstore has implied terms.

For a book, the implied term is physical ownership. Property is exchanged, that's the end.

For an electronic document, there could be written in an explicit contract that all sales are final, or it could be written that Amazon has the right to eliminate and refund any sold data at its own discretion (we always click on "do you agree to the following T&Cs at most purchasing sites on the internet). For this latter possibility, I liken it to purchasing a house in a homeowners community. Although the real estate property is "owned" by the purchaser, the purchaser has also signed a contract that agrees to limits on the use of that land, of payments to a local association, and to potential shared development costs of the neighborhood. Therefore, when an explicit contract exists, it overrides the implied physical ownership contract (as it should).

Therefore, I'm certainly open to the possibility of siding with Amazon's actions (although it does create some personal distaste), but before I can make a decision I'd like to know the Kindle-contracts. Since Amazon took the action, I have a feeling their action concords with the contract's terms.

Chris

[Dragonfly]

Do I understand it correctly that Amazon just removed the text from the Kindle device that users have at home (including annotations that the users may have made)? In that case I'm sure I'll never ever buy such a Kindle thing, I don't want to have (the real) Big Brother in my home (it seems they may not be sold outside the USA anyway). My book store at least doesn't just enter my home to take away a book I purchased while there was something wrong with the book. Texts on my computer are protected and I can also make back-ups and put them in a safe place. Kindle? Thanks, but no thanks.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Christopher,

To show you how weird copyright issues can get, look at the following poem:

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I can say that this was written by Michael Stuart Kelly, sell it in any manner I devise and choose and it will be perfectly legal to do so. D'jue like mah pome?

So I don't exactly depend on the law for my own definitions of intellectual attribution or even money in some cases.

Also, take a look at this text:

Find great deals on leading brands.

Huge selection of books, magazines, music, DVDs, videos, electronics, computers and software.

Discount prices are available for a limited time only, so you have to act now.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Who is the copyright owner? Especially if a company charges for a catalog with this text in it written by an author who possibly was not paid?

I personally make another division ranging from advertising text to serious work. But my point is that if something so simple like what I have presented is so weird principle-wise, imagine when matters get more complex like in the present Amazon case.

Michael

[Christopher]

Isle ika the plum. You have talent. The rest of your words remind me of a song - you spin my head right round baby right round, I'm lost in the fogginess, right round round round.

I'm for contracts. That seems black and white. New contracts are current agreements that incorporate given aspects of previous contracts. Perhaps incorporation of previous contract laws are where the grayness enters the fray (previous contracts means: the standards of ownership/legislation that are considered implied upon which the current contract exists, such as real estate ownership existing as a foundation upon which home owners association contracts are built). But then, maybe contracts are not clear. Here are the relevant excerpts from the Kindle T&Cs:

Use of Digital Content. Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.

The "Service" means the wireless connectivity, provision of digital content, software and support, and other services and support that Amazon provides Device users.

And provision means, according to Dictionary.com:

1. a clause in a legal instrument, a law, etc., providing for a particular matter; stipulation; proviso.

2. the providing or supplying of something, esp. of food or other necessities.

3. arrangement or preparation beforehand, as for the doing of something, the meeting of needs, the supplying of means, etc.

4. something provided; a measure or other means for meeting a need.

5. a supply or stock of something provided.

Now either Amazon broke contract of the permanent copy statement, or the term "or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service" gives Amazon a blank check on their behavior. But I don't interpret this mess as pro-Amazon, so I rescind my earlier statement that Amazon's actions are legal.

Ahh.... but if one keeps reading, here is that blank check! (although it appears unused at present)

Amendment. Amazon reserves the right to amend any of the terms of this Agreement at its sole discretion by posting the revised terms on the Kindle Store or the Amazon.com website. Your continued use of the Device and Software after the effective date of any such amendment shall be deemed your agreement to be bound by such amendment.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530content

Anyway, the amendment section should be considered absolutely illegal. If it weren't I'd add it to every transaction I would ever perform. And I guess I have to concede about grayness... we are dealing with United States Law here. Gray laws are oxymorons, as are the lawyers who write them.

Anyway, fun fun fun!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Christopher,

Read carefully the words you yourself posted.

A person does not buy a copy of a digital work from Amazon. A person licenses it.

If any ownership is involved, it is ownership of the license, not the copy of the work.

Once Amazon loses the license to provide that work on it's physical support (the Kindle system) to the public, it can no longer provide that work to former licensees as well. So it refunded the money. This makes sense to me.

Anyway, where else are you going to be able to legally obtain current bestsellers and other highly-sought works for a fraction of the cost?

You should see some of the tangles that occur with movie and music rights.

Michael

[thomtg]

On your interpretation, Michael, Kindle owners are merely license holders of the authors' books. By this account, the Kindle devices are merely a part of this licensing distribution system.

It has been the case that customers, having bought something, could for a limited time and limited reasons exchange or return something bought from a store. Now the store, Amazon in this case, can at any time electronically go to every customer and take its "licenses" back. This stinks morally.

More reactions from the blogosphere here.

[BaalChatzaf]

On your interpretation, Michael, Kindle owners are merely license holders of the authors' books. By this account, the Kindle devices are merely a part of this licensing distribution system.

It has been the case that customers, having bought something, could for a limited time and limited reasons exchange or return something bought from a store. Now the store, Amazon in this case, can at any time electronically go to every customer and take its "licenses" back. This stinks morally.

More reactions from the blogosphere here.

This kind of thing cannot happen with hard-copy books. You could buy a lot of hard-copy books (used books) for what it costs to purchase a Kindle device.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On your interpretation, Michael, Kindle owners are merely license holders of the authors' books. By this account, the Kindle devices are merely a part of this licensing distribution system.

Thom,

That is not my interpretation. That is Amazon's explicit contract as posted by Christopher.

Actually, Kindle devices are only part of a licensing distribution system, sort of like Cable TV with "on demand" programming.

I fail to see the moral problem. If Cable TV can remove a film or program from the "on demand" section, or even an entire station from its package (and that apparently is moral), why is it immoral for Kindle? If you paid for a film and it got canceled before you could view it, you would demand a refund. Amazon paid refunds to people, even those who had used the product for a long time.

I am not saying this is your case, but in many of the complaints I have read, I detect people resenting Amazon because it is so big—and competent enough to stay that way. I personally admire Amazon.

Here's the litmus test. Why not boycott Kindle and pay for a print publication if this is such an issue? Nothing stops people from buying a print copy for 3 or 4 times the price of a digital license. Do people want to demand that they have a right and entitlement to Amazon's huge discount for digital licensing and delivery over the print option?

New technology always comes with new realities. Imagine if we tried to use the laws and market structures governing horse-and-carriage for automobiles.

Michael

[thomtg]

Here is a follow up to the story: Amazon has apologized for the bulk deletion and is now being sued for stealing the work of a 17-year-old student. Read more on the issue of digital "rights" here.

[Philip Coates]

> I fail to see the moral problem. If Cable TV can remove a film or program from the "on demand" section, or even an entire station from its package (and that apparently is moral), why is it immoral for Kindle? [MSK]

You pay for cable 'packages' sold on the basis of including a specific list of channels. The fact that they have been able to get away with then deleting some channels doesn't make it any less a breach of contract (unless allowed by the small print and a refund in the written terms).

It's as if you paid fifty bucks to subscribe to seven magazines and then they decide to no longer send you one of the magazines. Refund or no, it's not what you agreed to and maybe not the reason you thought the 'package' was a good deal in the first place.

The difference with Kindle is that they are reclaiming something you already have in your possession and -unilaterally- decide to give you a refund.

Think of it this way: I, Phil, sell you, MSK, a car. I later either change my mind or I find that my girlfriend who gave me the car didn't have the rights to it (or so I claim!). So, instead of going through a court of law, I simply sneak into your house in the dead of night, slip the keys out from your desk and drive away with it. You wake up in the morning ready to drive to work. No car. Instead you find a check and an explanation. MSK would probably say: I bought this car and am counting on having it/was planning to use it. If Phil didn't have the right to sell it, that's Phil's problem.

[Brant Gaede]

These things will get worked out. In the meantime, the country burns.

--Brant

[Christopher]

I think the real problem is that as a society we have created an expectation about what ownership entails for all transactions. However in the case of Amazon, ownership was being redefined to license-holding (based on the T&Cs). Although we consumers had an expectation about digital ownership, our expectations do not match the contract that is agreed to with the ownership of Amazon Kindle products. In Rand's words, there are no "consumer rights."

Now, whether or not it is lawful for Amazon to "sell" something, regardless of lawful contract, that goes against the common assumption of ownership - that is something else. Much communication and expectation is cultural, and most transactions are based on a mutual (cultural) understanding of what that transaction entails. Therefore, should Amazon be forced to regard the expectations of the culture in the exchange of money and product?

[Brant Gaede]

Never mind Amazon and never mind Kindle. Mind Google's assault on copyright.

--Brant