Winston Smith and the Hamfishted Overlord

It's everywhere now, but Amazon has removed copies of George Orwell books from functioning Kindles out there due to a copyright spat.

'In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.”On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole — by Amazon.com.In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique,Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.

The NYT further reports that some versions of Harry Potter books and works by Ayn Rand were also removed as well as notes that a student took while using 1984 for a school assignment.

"Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said."

On the upside, editions of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World now come with a Jeff Bezos laugh track.

Thanks to Alex for the link.

David