Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos used Amazon's Kindle Community
Forum Thursday to apologize for the way Amazon handled the deletion of books by George Orwell, including
1984, from users' Kindles. Acknowledging the
media firestorm surrounding Kindle and Amazon's reaction to the Orwell book snafu, Bezos described the moves as a "painful mistake."
Bezos posted the following:
This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.
With deep apology to our customers,
Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com
Late last week, Amazon deleted copies of Orwell's most famous novels from its Kindle and users' Kindles themselves. The move itself wasn't wrong; Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm are still under copyright in the United States and a company called MobileReference placed them in the Kindle store without permission using Amazon's self-service uploader.
The problem was how Amazon handled the issue, zapping the content from Kindles -- taking the "Big Brother" approach, in effect -- without much in the way of explanation to Kindle users.
Amazon's made a number of moves to correct the problem -- including issuing refunds to Kindle users that had purchased the Orwell books -- but the personal apology from Bezos is unprecedented. Initial comments posted to Amazon's Kindle Community Forum in response to Bezos tended toward the supportive side, with many thanking Bezos for his candor.
If anything, Bezos' apology suggests Amazon is pulling out all the stops to protect the Kindle brand. The company's had more than a few Kindle-related headaches lately, and with e-readers, e-reading apps and e-reading competition coming from all sides, big PR mistakes with Kindle are something it has to avoid.
