Piracy is just the excuse. What they're saying is that Amazon will allow a collection of corporations (including Amazon) to decide what you're allowed to do with the hardware they pretended to let you buy.
Indeed. I wonder if in these executive conversations anyone ever asks the question, "Music has been purchaseable now without DRM for quite a while. Why has music piracy essentially died but movies/TV shows/etc is still as hot as ever?"
Implication being that piracy reduced the amount of people who could make a living off music? Another explanation is that simply more people are making music. I suspect the actual percentage of musicians who can make a living is the same as ever though.