[cpymchn]

Technically, it wasn't a bootleg. Outside the USA, Orwell is in the public domain. A public domain copy was uploaded to Amazon with 'Global' rights. People in America bought it for 99 cents. The American rights holder complained. The rights listing was changed to "the rest of the world".

Then Amazon had a problem. What to do?

They couldn't give the 99 cents from the US customers to the American publishers because it (A) belonged to the publisher outside the US and (B) the American copies were $9.99 so it wouldn't have been enough.

They could have prompted the American customers to pay the difference, then compensate the American rights holders.

They could have done nothing.

But in the end they said 'we didn't have the right to sell you this in the first place so we are taking the book back'.

Gross but similar to what happens when you change the country code for your Apple ID and things you bought disappear.

[klyrs]

This is the "you wouldn't download a car, would you?" hot take flipped on its head. If a dealership accidentally sells you a car for less than they can get it from the manufacturer, they eat the loss. They can't go out and repossess the car. But amazon? They totally turned around to repossess your electronic book because of their own pricing mistake.

[AlexandrB]

Consumer rights are still stuck in the 90s. Digital purchases are treated like some kind of special case where the vendor can do whatever they want and get away with it instead of an exchange of goods for money.

[lp0_on_fire]

Let's not pretend this was a large dilemma for Amazon to solve. They screwed up by offering this copy for sale so they should have eaten the cost.

Instead what happened was the digital equivalent of Amazon breaking into your house during the night, removing the book from your shelf, and leaving the refund on the kitchen table on the way out.

I don't think it's similar to the Apple situation since in that example you (in theory) know you're getting a region-locked product.

[boomboomsubban]

>Outside the USA, Orwell is in the public domain

This happened in 2009, Orwell hit the public domain in 2021.