I received an email from Amazon this evening saying they were refunding a series of books I had purchased by George Orwell on the Kindle.
I called them to ask them why they were refunding the books; because I had never requested the refund.
They responded in saying that they were very sorry, they had no idea why the books were being refunded, but they needed to remove them off my kindle.
I told the representative that I wasn’t so much concerned about the book & the money; I knew I could buy it again in other formats; but I was definitely concerned about the fact that Amazon at any time could decide to remove books that I had purchased off of my kindle; and they’re only requirement was to refund my money (did they really even have to do that?).
What happens when the government decides to outlaw certain books; or certain publishers decide that they want to pull all books of the book shelf (like Oceania in 1984, many organizations have done this in the recent past to erase and rewrite their own history).
This is why I have no problem circumventing DRM (when possible). I bought the book; I own the book. Amazon should have no ability to “steal” my purchased book back from me; even if they wanted to refund my money.
The world is a changing place… prepare yourself!