Amazon Pays $150,000 to Settle Lawsuit
Amazon recently paid out $150,000 to a student who sued the company over a lost e-book which had been deleted from the account. The online bookstore became the subject of a lawsuit after Justin D Gawronski filed a claim against the company for deleting a copy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four from his Kindle’s account.
Amazon said the deletion was prompted when the company learned that the novel, as well as Animal Farm had been added to their database even though it was still under copyright laws. The company, trying to avoid copyright infringement removed the books from user accounts and then credited the money towards the accounts. Under 2000 copies of the books, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm had been sold at the point of removal.
The irony is not lost on the company that the underhanded deletion was of George Orwell’s infamous big brother-esque novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which no doubt has caused some of the controversary, as Animal Farm, equally under copyright and deleted from Kindle as well, barely gets a mention.
Justin Gawronski was annoyed enough with the company’s actions, however, that he sued for over $150,000. The young man claimed that not only did the company delete his copy of the novel, but that he had also made notes in those files and now they too were gone.
Amazon reached an agreement with Gawronksi to the tune of $150,000 which will be awarded to him and the other plaintiff in the case. Amazon also had to implicitly say that they would not handle similar matters the same way, so now it is company policy that once a book is downloaded from the company’s site, it will not be changed with out further notice.
For now, Amazon will not be playing Big Brother again, anytime soon.
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