A Michigan high school senior has sued Amazon.com Inc. over its deletion of copies of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 from the Kindle eBook reader, claiming the deletion has affected his studies, reports the Wall Street Journal. The suit, which seeks class-action status, claims that when the company wirelessly deleted the text from Justin D. Gawronski’s Kindle earlier this month, it also deleted the notes he had taken on the device for his homework. The suit seeks to prevent Amazon from again deleting books from Kindles. It also seeks monetary relief for people like Gawronski who lost work from the incident. Amazon has declined to comment on the suit. The company, which refunded the purchase price of Orwell books to people whose copies it deleted (owing to copyright concerns over the legitimacy of the original sale), already has said it would not take such action again. Last week, the company’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, apologized for the incident, calling it "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles."
Lawsuit: Amazon ate my homework
By eSchool News
July 31st, 2009
