[veritgo]

Nowhere near the same level of disappointment, but it is kind of sad that an article from the NYTimes lacks any mention that they tried to contact Amazon for a comment. Even a simple 'Amazon was called but declined to comment' would have been appreciated.

[jrockway]

It was a blog hosted by the Times, not an article in the Times.

[sailormoon]

What could Amazon possible say to defend their actions? The facts are plain to see. Personally I could do without their lame corporate spin, anyway.

edit: why the downvotes? It's a sincere comment! When Sony installed frickin' rootkits on people's computers, did anyone say "wait, wait, let's wait for their side of the story"? Of course not.

"Why" doesn't matter. What matters is that it can be done, that it has been done, and it might well be done again. Nothing Amazon says changes any of that. I stand by what I said.

[andreyf]

Um, Amazon could point out that the decision to withdraw the book was that of the publisher, and that they are legally bound to defend the rights publishers as defined under US law.

Think of it this way - there are a couple of parties here. Both Amazon and most publishers are public corporations. That means they have a legal obligation to maximize shareholder value. The law allows publishers certain rights, and, in order to follow the law (maximize shareholder value), they must take advantage of those rights.

Amazon, in turn, has a choice of forcing the publishers give up their rights under the law. Doing so would decrease the number of publishers that sell books. I imagine they did an economic analysis and figured that to maximize shareholder value, they must protect the publishers' legal right at the expense of common understanding of "readers' rights".

So, where exactly is the problem here? Is it in people following the laws?

I would say no: the problem is with the laws themselves. Which laws is an interesting question, one that is very much lacking discussion on this forum :(