If you bought a book legally, and someone took it from your shelf without your permission, how would you feel? Victimized, perhaps? What if a government allowed that taking, or even required it? Wouldn't that be...Orwellian? Shades of 1984, in other words, in which government censors erased all traces of news reports embarrassing to the government.
Well, don't look now folks, but Amazon.com recently did some erasing of their own. They remotely deleted books from their customers' Kindles, without asking or even announcing their intentions. But wait, it gets better. What makes this case especially juicy are the titles which Amazon deleted: the aforementioned 1984, and Orwell's classic tale of the perversion of democracy, Animal Farm. Irony thick enough to cut with a knife, right?
Amazon claims they will not do such a thing again, but why should anyone have the power to do so in the first place?
If you'd like to read either of the books in question online (or download a copy to keep), you can do so. You can, for example, Google "1984 download" and find more than one source. Isn't the Internet wonderful?
Other links: Volokh, 1984, Animal Farm
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