I just came across this post of yours. I just had a conversation with the Library Director where I volunteer. So, I thought I’d share some of my conversation with him here with you!

We talked, sure enough, about how publishers are seldom comfortable with a cornerstone mission of libraries, which is for readers/the public to be able to access to books and materials at no or minimal cost. Publishers are uneasy with accessible e-books to library patrons, thinking that patrons/people then won’t go out and buy books as a result. Publishers are profit driven.
My Library Director and I also talked about the inevitable increase in prices on e-books as capitalism pure and simple. The Director thought Apple and more likely Amazon will monopolize the e-book industry and even books to such an extent that they will eventually set prices. He wondered if people in the future will be paying prices for e-books that aren’t all that significantly cheaper in price than monograph books.

Moreover, he reminded me again that people forget that with e-books, readers do not own the book as they would, say, a paper/hardback book purchased in a bookstore. People may not realize that the e-book version of a book may be quite different than the published monograph hard copy one — the e-book is often stripped down without illustration, unique fonts, and so forth.
Also my Library Director reminded me that people can’t turn around and sell an e-book or mark it up, or even donate it. Sure, they can borrow an e-book perhaps at a library, but unless they loan their entire Kindle or IPAD reader to someone else, they simply can’t “loan” the e-book on its own.
Is it possible e-book reading really shares a kind of use that is more akin to watching TV (or perhaps watching a TIVO recorded show)? I’m beginning to think so.

Which brings me to those interesting quotes in your blog: that “Books are socially and legally situated.” Yes indeed — I’m beginning to see how.

And your quote: “E-books are disruptive in ways we can barely comprehend.” How very true! Thanks for your interesting blog post, Karen!

“Of course, I’m not sure if that’s actually what happened in this case. Sounds more like a misunderstanding and the publishing company either didn’t realize the book was available as a kindle book or realized that they weren’t allowed to do that and started trying to backtrack.”

If these books are available at Project Gutenberg, chances are the Publisher had no right to be making money off the title in the way they were (i know nothing about this side of things), perhaps they were charging too much or… who knows, and they were required not to make money from selling something they didn’t own – hence the refunds.

It makes more sense than “it was a pirate copy” since it is a title that is freely available as Larry Scritchfield points out.

The Kindle display problem lay with incorrect HTML markup at Project Gutenberg Australia, not with any inappropriate filtering on the part of Amazon.

The moderator may choose not to post either this post and the earlier one. Actually, that would be my preference.

The files are apparently on my Kindle, but when I attempt to view them, they are blank!

This seems to be beyond what Amazon has a right to do.

We didn’t vote Amazon in, yet they control information.

It would be sad if, what has happened to mainstream media, was to happen to fiction. You might say it couldn’t happen, that the human race has always sought a variety of sources for information, yet independent television news is all but gone.