Rachel Metz of Associated Press reports that Amazon.com is offering free replacement books or $30 to Kindle customers whose copies of the George Orwell novels “1984” and “Animal Farm” were deleted from their electronic reading devices in July. The deletion led to a class-action lawsuit started by one student who was using the book for a course assignment and whose book and notes were erased after Amazon.com learned that the company who had made the books available didn’t have the rights to them. The entire situation was a public reactions fiasco for Amazon.com.
In an e-mail sent Thursday to Kindle owners whose books were erased, Amazon offered to redeliver the titles to their e-readers for free, along with any annotations users had made. Or the customers can get a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate or a $30 check — which could be worth much more than two Kindle books, because many of them cost $10 or less.
According to the attorney who filed the class-action lawsuit, the lawsuit will go forward despite this offer.