I'm just kidding about that last bit. .

It gets worse. In yanking the books out of its customers' e-libraries, Amazon appears to have broken the Kindle's own terms of service. Per :

Amazon's published for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a "permanent copy of the applicable digital content."

Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer's home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.

The problem with digital rights is that you and I don't have any. Paying customers are entirely at the mercy of the content providers and/or their delivery mechanisms. If Amazon decides the book you just paid for isn't "applicable digital content," or , you're screwed. Your choice? Take it or leave it; pirate it or hack it.