Can Amazon revert a license without giving any explanation?

[GoodGame]

Well, the UK is part of the EU, so wouldn't they be subject to the ruling I posted earlier?

IDK, it is complicated, but some member states have "opt-outs" that they made as conditions of membership.

 

[Quintillus]

The Amazon Kindle TOS explicitly ask you to wave your legal right to sue them, to have a class action, and to have a jury trial!
I had the impression that those were inalienable rights for USA citizens...
Now, this is question for people more informed about USA legal system:
A contract that let you wave your basic legal right is enforceable in court?

In my view is like having a contract saying that you agree to be bound in slavery if you fail a payment... you may have agreed in the contract, but what the contract asks is illegal to start with, so not really enforceable.

IANAL, but I agree with you that it would seem sensible that this sort of contract is inherently unenforceable specifically because of what you said.

Sounds like a good reason to never buy an e-book that isn't DRM-free. Bad for the dead trees, though. But I've already been buying forest-depleting versions of books, and this only serves to reinforce that behavior.

I have occasionally bought software via online retailers that wasn't in boxed format, but when doing that, I'm usually paying about a third of what I would normally. So even if they did pull an Orwell, I would have still got my money's worth. E-books tend to be priced at about 85%-90% of the price of a regular book, so it makes you wonder what the point of them is, aside perhaps from searchability (and weight if you usually carry tons of books around). Surely the actual printing and shipping of regular books must make up a good chunk of the cost (half or more?), thus meaning e-books are a gold mine for publishers? By my reckoning, there's a good chance that regular books end up being cheaper, since you can sell them afterwards if you so desire.