It's a case steeped in irony: author George Orwell railed against big government making draconian decisions against the helpless masses. Yet, it was his classic books
Animal Farm and
1984 that Amazon has removed without warning from its Kindle electronic book service that allows consumers who own the device to download "permanent" copies of the works. It seems Amazon hadn't properly vetted the copyright clearances on the books, so they not only removed them from their sales catalogs, but also retracted the versions from consumer's Kindles devices. The action has consumers steamed, as they point out that if Amazon had sent out print editions of the works, they would not be able to retrieve them from people's homes - yet the company feels comfortable doing so with the digital versions. In one case, a reader complained that he had made notes on a manuscript for a research project - only to find the entire document has vanished from his Kindle. For more
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