It used to be that the most popular excuse for missing homework was that “the dog ate it.” Not so if you are Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old Michigan high school senior. Gawronski is blaming Amazon for losing his homework after the company wirelessly deleted a copy of George Orwell's “1984” from Gawronski's Kindle, deleting along with it the notes he had taken on the device for his homework.

According to the complaint filed in a federal class action lawsuit in Seattle: “As part of his studies of '1984,' Mr. Gawronski had made copious notes in the book. After Amazon remotely deleted '1984,' those notes were rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book. The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as 'remember this paragraph for your thesis' is useless if it does not actually reference a specific paragraph. By deleting '1984' from Mr. Gawronski's Kindle 2, this is the position in which Amazon left him. Mr. Gawronski now needs to recreate all of his studies.”

Gawronski seeks to prevent Amazon from again deleting books from Kindles. Gawronski also seeks monetary relief for his lost work. He filed the lawsuit, he said, because he wants to “help set a precedent so that Amazon doesn't do this again” and to help move the industry forward. “When you think that you own something and don't own it – that's not how it should be,” he said.

According to news sources, the Amazon Kindle Terms of Service shows that Amazon has the right to do what they will with the books: “You acknowledge that the sale of the Device to you does not transfer to you title to or ownership of any intellectual property rights of Amazon or its suppliers. All of the Software is licensed, not sold, and such license is non-exclusive…Amazon reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service at any time, and Amazon will not be liable to you should it exercise such right.”

—Source: WSJ.com