If you have been anywhere near the Internet over the past couple of days you have heard about Amazon's disastrous decision to remove legitimately purchased (although illegitimately provided; more on that in a bit) e-books from Kindle devices of users. Adding fuel to what was already an explosive situation, the e-books in question were George Orwell's "Animal House" and "1984." Click here for some small taste of the storm of outrage this decision has resulted in.

While this was a public relations disaster of the highest magnitude for Amazon, a coup for activists campaigning against restrictive digital rights management systems, and a potentially actionable case for the Federal Trade Commission (in that Amazon has, at first blush, violated the terms of the Kindle licensing agreement provided to customers who purchase books with the device), it's also an instructive episode on content and control in the Online Services age. As many detractors have not failed to point out, what has happened with these two books can happen with any digitally provided and managed product... from music to e-mail to sales information. And it's not restricted to products provided with explicitly attached DRM, either; it's anything that comes with some element of ongoing control resting with a third party, sort of in-built DRM, as when services are provided via tethered devices or on remotely located and owned servers.

So what does all this mean to the CIO?

It's not so much that this state of affairs is evil, as opponents would have you believe, as it is that it is simply a new reality which will have to be adjusted to and planned for. The howls of outrage are understandable and justifiable; but it may be more instructive to look at the implications for both providers and users, because the elimination or propagation of DRM ultimately is only a small step toward maintaining or regaining control over digital products.

The unexamined half of this story is Amazon's side of it. Only a handful of media outlets have reported on the impetus by which the company undertook this drastic step. Apparently, the editions which had been sold from Amazon's store had been put there without sufficient authorization from the publisher. To rectify this breach of contract with the publisher, Amazon halted sales and revoked sales previously "completed," the latter a step that would have been impossible for any traditional bookseller. As repugnant as this is to buyers, consider the advantages inherent to the model for any seller or supplier. No one complains when Microsoft releases free patches for products previously purchased. The outcry was muted when Valve and other game publishers started delivering games in "episodes" a half or quarter the length of prior titles. Doing so allowed more discrete control, better application of technology as it was developed, and ultimately, added value to customers. SaaS platforms and other online delivery systems increase that value even further by shortening the feedback and delivery cycle.

But not all the value in these systems accrues to customers, as Amazon has demonstrated. Producers also have something to gain, and it is usually in the form of greater control over the distribution and use of their products. Would Amazon ever have been allowed to deliver books in digital format without such controls? I'm not privy to the deals that were done, but DRM has figured significantly in music industry digital distribution deals.

Those deals were driven by consumers and their demand, in the face of easily pirated versions of the media condemned by the industry, for easily available, relatively cheap, legal alternatives to purchase. Consumers have argued, quite understandably, that content which costs almost nothing to distribute en masse, should not cost as much as content which relies upon expensive physical media. After the Amazon debacle, many of those voices have apparently decided that physical content isn't such a bad deal after all.

But there is no reason to shy away from the real advantages present to both sides in digital distribution systems. Perhaps, in the same way that consumers insist that content producers must adjust to the new reality of digital distribution by accepting lower pricing and margins as a necessary result of essentially costless reproduction, consumers will also have to adjust to the new and apparently invasive controls that producers have as a result of their ability to control the delivery systems and media.

So this, finally, is the lesson for CIOs: know where the control ultimately resides when you put together deals these days. This isn't a new lesson for IT departments; plenty were burned in the past when they found they didn't control the source code of custom applications or had signed away their upgrade rights to software when they failed to close a new maintenance deal on schedule, but as this episode has shown, there are new and insidious implications in the control game. It's not always obvious where the licensing terms are trumped by the sheer technical capabilities. You may successfully negotiate deals where the legal right is on your side (and businesses have much greater likelihood of enforcing these rights than individual consumers, certainly) but that is of little comfort should vital operating data disappear for the span of a court fight. You may win the battle and loose the business.

There is no formula for ensuring that you maintain control when adopting SaaS applications or moving to cloud-based utility computing services, but in every instance there are mitigating actions that can be taken. Local or third-party backups, redundant providers, some stake in the game for the service provider are all options that can increase your degree of ultimate control in the business deals of the modern age.