Amazon removed books from my Kindle

[Sirtel]

I keep back-ups of all my digital stuff on external drives and in Dropbox. I don't encrypt anything, there's nothing really sensitive there. They can look at the photos of my cats and my wallpaper collection, and read my ebooks if they want. I don't care.

[Josieb1]

Is this a problem if people side load via Calibre or USB? I’m sorry but I don’t really understand as Amazon have never removed my personal document books, but I send all my stuff through Send to Kindle.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Is this a problem if people side load via Calibre or USB? I’m sorry but I don’t really understand as Amazon have never removed my personal document books, but I send all my stuff through Send to Kindle.

Books sideloaded via USB get removed.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Is this a problem if people side load via Calibre or USB? I’m sorry but I don’t really understand as Amazon have never removed my personal document books, but I send all my stuff through Send to Kindle.

jhowell did some tests and found that books marked as personal documents don't get removed. But if they're marked as books (e.g. for Goodreads integration), Amazon checks that against the list of books in your account and removes the ones not in it.

Personally, I'm suspecting some sort of Orwellian "anti-piracy" measure. Considering the DRM changes, Amazon seems to not like customers going outside their little ecosystem.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Books sideloaded via USB get removed.

Thank you

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

jhowell did some tests and found that books marked as personal documents don't get removed. But if they're marked as books (e.g. for Goodreads integration), Amazon checks that against the list of books in your account and removes the ones not in it.

Personally, I'm suspecting some sort of Orwellian "anti-piracy" measure. Considering the DRM changes, Amazon seems to not like customers going outside their little ecosystem.

Thank you. Does this mean AZW format? Only I download AZW3 from A03 direct to my Scribe via the web browser and they seem okay. When I Send to Kindle I send epubs. I don’t do anything via USB as I have three Kindle’s so the STK books I want access on all three devices.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

jhowell did some tests and found that books marked as personal documents don't get removed. But if they're marked as books (e.g. for Goodreads integration), Amazon checks that against the list of books in your account and removes the ones not in it.

Personally, I'm suspecting some sort of Orwellian "anti-piracy" measure. Considering the DRM changes, Amazon seems to not like customers going outside their little ecosystem.

I just read the link you provided of JHowells tests. That’s not good.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Thank you. Does this mean AZW format? Only I download AZW3 from A03 direct to my Scribe via the web browser and they seem okay. When I Send to Kindle I send epubs. I don’t do anything via USB as I have three Kindle’s so the STK books I want access on all three devices.

The format doesn't matter. If you have wifi always on, then your downloaded files probably won't get deleted. "Probably" because no one can predict what will happen in the future.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

jhowell did some tests and found that books marked as personal documents don't get removed. But if they're marked as books (e.g. for Goodreads integration), Amazon checks that against the list of books in your account and removes the ones not in it.

Personally, I'm suspecting some sort of Orwellian "anti-piracy" measure. Considering the DRM changes, Amazon seems to not like customers going outside their little ecosystem.

As I understand the issue, it's not that those books don't exist on your account; they well may if they've been purchased from Amazon. What matters is that to Amazon's knowledge, they've not been downloaded to your Kindle and so shouldn't exist there. Hence the deleting.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

As I understand the issue, it's not that those books don't exist on your account; they well may if they've been purchased from Amazon. What matters is that to Amazon's knowledge, they've not been downloaded to your Kindle and so shouldn't exist there. Hence the deleting.

That kind of thinking by Amazon wouldn't make any sense. Since they themselves provide "Download & transfer via USB". That doesn't require WiFi. Thus they shouldn't care that WiFi "has been turned off for a while" and start deleting books triggering on that (or so it appears).

My thoughts on this problem have changed over time. They went from "this could be accidental or an oversight" to "they'd have to be stupid to do this" to "this is intentional and malicious". We'll see what the next revelation in this thread brings to change my mind again.

As it stands right now, I will keep my Kindle in permanent airplane mode. And when it breaks, I will replace it with some other non-Amazon eReader. If that were today, it would probably be a Kobo. However, I will keep an open mind for new developments and information to change my view on this. None of us really knows what is happening or why - we're all just speculating, but that speculation is really narrowing down to the meat of the issue because of people like @jhowell (thanks!) who are doing testing on this. Not looking too good right now for ethics at Amazon. It appears to me that they have moved from incompetent to unethical, given the newest information.

[Quoth]

Never underestimate corporate stupidity. Either way they could be facing fines soon.

After the Orwell fiasco they promised to never remotely delete ever.

It's also illegal in many countries.

[slm]

Originally Posted by jhowell

To me this appears to be evidence of the intentional deletion of books that are marked internally as having come from Amazon for which there is no associated record in the user's account.

I bought a PW2 some years ago from Unclaimed Baggage. The original account has been removed by Unclaimed Baggage but not the books or newspapers. When I registered it to my account, the books and newspapers stayed there. I had a fun time reading the Sunday Times (London) from several months back.

My guess would be that Amazon would now delete these books.

As, in fact, they should.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by slm

As, in fact, they should.

No, they absolutely should not delete anything on anyone's personal device. What an user keeps on their device is the user's business, not Amazon's. Amazon is not police and even if a user keeps illegal or pirated stuff on their device, it is not Amazon's business to delete it.

[slm]

Well, if you believe the license that you "agree" to when you buy an ebook, you can not sell an ebook. So--on that basis--you should not be able to sell an ereader and have the sellers purchased ebooks survive the switch to your account.

That said, I'm in the US where the law is that for physical books, the publisher (or any seller) can not prohibit further sales. So I see the ebook "license" as an end-run around the Supreme Court case holding that on-sales can not be barred.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by slm

Well, if you believe the license that you "agree" to when you buy an ebook, you can not sell an ebook. So--on that basis--you should not be able to sell an ereader and have the sellers purchased ebooks survive the switch to your account.

Well, that is the seller's responsibility to ensure their device is empty of books before selling it. It is not and should not be any business of Amazon or some other private company.