Bezos certainly did the right thing by issuing an apology. As Howard Knopf said in a recent posting on excesscopyright "such a quick and unequivocal apology is to be commended. (lessons here to be learned by the RIAA, CRIA, ASCAP, Access Copyright, etc.)" And from the comments posted on the Kindle Community forum it looks like it is resonating with many Kindle users, at least most of those who are posting to the forum.

But the apology does not address the underlying issues that need to be addressed in order for Amazon to really  make better decisions going forward. They need to take the further step of removing DRM from their products altogether.  Amazon should acknowledge that so long as they retain the technological capacity to monitor and control the units purchased by consumers, there is no effective guarantee against this occurring again in the future.

In response to Amazon's apology, the Free Software Foundation issued a statement welcoming the apology but calling for the removal of DRM:

The FSF and Defective By Design, which on Monday called on activists to post reviews calling attention to the Kindle Swindle's arbitrary deletion of George Orwell ebooks from hundreds of users' devices, welcomed Bezos's apology, but said more must be done to remedy the problems exposed by Amazon's actions.

 

FSF's executive director Peter Brown explained, "Unfortunately this matter requires more than just changing internal policy. The real issue here is Amazon's use of DRM and proprietary software. They have unacceptable power over users, and actual respect necessitates more than an apology -- it requires abandoning DRM and releasing the Kindle's software as free software."

 

The deletion of the Orwell ebooks was Amazon's third blatant demonstration of the control its software provides over users. In June, Amazon remotely deleted copies of Ayn Rand books, and prior to that, they disabled Text-to-Speech functionality for select titles -- a move which was a slap in the face to all users and particularly to the visually impaired community.

 

FSF operations manager John Sullivan added, "Amazon has been a positive example for Defective By Design to point to in the world of DRM-free music. We hope that this controversy will show Amazon that they need to take the same enlightened approach when it comes to ebooks, so Kindle users can be confident that they won't be Swindled again."

All just more evidence that the DMCA was a flawed policy which ended up causing a whole set of unanticipated consequences which are best avoided in Canada... a point that should not be lost in the current round of Copyright Consultations.

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