Posted by Eugene Volokh: "My Kindle Ate My Homework: Lawsuit Filed Over 1984 Deletion": http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_02-2009_08_08.shtml#1249408313
So reports [1]Ars Technica, and points to [2]the complaint. The complaint is based on breach of contract, a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass to chattels, conversion, and a violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act. As I noted [3]earlier, Amazon's actions were indeed not authorized under the terms of use, which say that "Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times." This makes for a strong breach of contract claim (though the damages might well be modest), and makes the other claims at least plausible, though I don't know enough to speak in detailed about them. I also can't speak to whether class certification would indeed be sound here. Special note: Two of the proposed classes for class certification purposes are labeled "The Big Brother Class" and "The Big Brother Work-Product Subclass." Shades of the anonymous plaintiff [4]Guy Montag Doe? By the way, according to the Complaint, "Earlier in 2009, Amazon reportedly remotely deleted certain copies of �Harry Potter� books by J.K. Rowling and certain copies of books by Ayn Rand." Assignment: Discuss, in light of Howard Roark blowing up the housing project. References 1. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/07/my-kindle-ate-my-homework-lawsuit-filed-over-1984-deletion.ars 2. http://www.prnewschannel.com/pdf/Amazon_Complaint.pdf 3. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1248045949.shtml 4. http://www.volokh.com/posts/1229628539.shtml
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