Amazon Settles Kindle "1984" Lawsuit

From PC World: That didn't take long. Two months after a high school student sued Amazon for removing George Orwell's "1984" from his Kindle e-reader, along with all his notes, Amazon has settled the lawsuit.

Techflash dug up the the settlement, which was filed in Seattle on September 25. Amazon will give $150,000 to the plaintiff's lawyers, and lead law firm KamberEdelson LLC said it will donate its share to charity. It's not clear from Techflash's report how much money 17-year-old Justin Gawronski of Michigan and a co-plaintiff, Antoine Bruguier, will get.

In July, Amazon remotely wiped Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" from all Kindle e-readers, because the publisher of the e-books didn't have the rights to sell them in the United States. The move was seen as Orwellian in itself, and raised questions of whether the consumer really owns digital content that is downloaded and paid for.

Shortly after the incident, Amazon apologized and said it wouldn't happen again. People who had downloaded the e-books, who were already refunded after the deletion, were offered their e-books back along with their notes, or they could take a $30 gift certificate instead.

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