Teen Wins $150K Over Amazon’s Kindle Clawback of Orwell E-Book

When Amazon eliminated a George Orwell book from users' Kindles earlier this year, after discovering the electronic text had been sold without proper authorization, it also eliminated Justin Gawronski's homework.

His notes on the margins remained, but since the text of Nineteen Eighty-Four was gone they were undecipherable, reports the Jacket Copy blog of the Los Angeles Times.

So Gawronski, 17, sued in federal court in Seattle, contending that Amazon hadn't notified him that it could eliminate from his Kindle e-books that he had purchased. He was represented by attorney Jay Edelson of KamberEdelson.

Now the Internet giant has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle his proposed class action.

Additional details are discussed in a PC World article and a Techflash post, which also provides a link to the settlement (PDF).

It says that the $150,000 will go to KamberEdelson, which will donate some of the money to charity.

Earlier coverage:

ABAJournal.com: "‘Big Brother’ Amazon Deleted Orwell E-Books, Some Say; Lawyer Threatens Suit"

Bloomberg: "Amazon Sued for Deleting Orwell’s ‘1984’ on Kindle "