iPad is iBad for freedom--sign the petition
The Problem:
Amazon has already removed "read aloud" capability from books and deleted purchased copies of books on two separate occasions--all without users' permission and in apparent violation of their terms of service. They even deleted the personal notes of a high school student, taken while reading 1984.
Help us tell Amazon that this power to control the exchange of ideas is unacceptable in a free society.
In the News:
"It’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table." --David Pogue
"How Amazon's remote deletion of e-books from the Kindle paves the way for book-banning's digital future." --Slate
"On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole--by Amazon.com." --New York Times
"A growing number of civil libertarians and customer advocates wants Amazon to fundamentally alter its method for selling Kindle books." --New York Times
"Michigan student sues Amazon over '1984'" --Michigan Messenger
Signers
Richard Stallman
Founder, GNU project.
Lawrence Lessig
Harvard Law School. Author, Free Culture and Remix.
Elizabeth Stark
Yale Information Society Project
Cory Doctorow
Author, Little Brother. Editor, Boing Boing.
Clay Shirky
Author, Here Comes Everybody
John Palfrey
Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School
Tiffiniy Cheng
Founder, OpenCongress and A New Way Forward
Lewis Hyde
Author and Poet. MacArthur Fellow.
Christopher Hayes
Washington, DC editor "The Nation" magazine.
Aaron Swartz
Co-founder, BoldProgressives.org
Gabriella Coleman
New York University
Michael Mandiberg
Senior Fellow, Eyebeam, Co-Author of Digital Foundations.
Peter Suber
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University.
Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge.
Leah Belsky
Yale ISP
Ben Klemens
Fellow, Brookings Institution.
Adam Hyde
Publisher, FLOSS Manuals.
Evangelos (Evan) Katsamakas, PhD
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Business, Fordham University.
Ben Adida
Harvard University. Tech Advisor, Creative Commons.
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We believe in the freedom to read
We believe in a way of life based on the free exchange of ideas, in which books have and will continue to play a central role. Devices like Amazon's are trying to determine how people will interact with books, but Amazon's use of DRM to control and monitor users and their books constitutes a clear threat to the free exchange of ideas.
That is why we readers, authors, publishers, and librarians demand that Amazon remove all DRM, including any ability to control or access the user's library, from the Kindle.
Amazon's assurances that it will refrain from the worst abuses of this power do not address the problem. Amazon should not have this power in the first place. Until they give it up they will be tempted to use it, or they could be forced to by governments or narrow private interests. Whatever Amazon's reasons for imposing this control may be, they are not as important as the public's freedom to use books without interference or supervision.