In dealing with the fallout over the deletion of books from the Kindle, Amazon has decided that in the future, it would no longer delete copies of e-books that users had already paid for. So if a rights holder decided to stop offering the digital variant, no one will be able to buy more copies, but nothing will be done to users who already made the purchase.
That said, this is still a problem across digital media of which consumers should be aware: buying data online gives you the right to use it. It’s within companies rights to suddenly take it away. The contract on use of Kindle books states that “Amazon reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service at any time, and Amazon will not be liable to you should it exercise such right.” So the company did not violate anything. I’m thinking we need a list of standard principles so that companies like Amazon will in the future have to answer for their actions.
(Original story via Information Week)
