The Amazon Kindle aroused controversy  in the Internet community this week. Without notice, Amazon deleted at least two George Orwell novels that readers had purchased and downloaded to their Kindle devices.

The first surprise to Kindle owners was that Amazon had the ability to do this. If a customer buys an ebook and downloads it to his/her device does not he or she now own some rights to that ebook? How can Amazon remove an ebook without permission?

The really odd thing here are the specific books removed, i.e. “1984″ and “Animal Farm”. Nineteen Eighty-Four was first published in the calendar year 1949. It depicts a society not too far into the future in which the government has become extremely invasive, eliminating most individual freedoms. Electronic devices are installed everywhere to watch and listen to the activities of citizens. The book is considered “subversive” and is banned in some countries. Of all the books in the world how did this particular one get yanked? How did it become available for download in the first place?

Amazon claims that the book was a a “pirated copy”. Huh??? They sell a print copy. The author died in 1950 nearly 60 years ago. Surely, any copyrights have expired. In fact, you can freely read the book online at www.george-orwell.org. I found a copy in PDF format at a P2P bittorrent site and uploaded it to my iPod Touch. Perhaps “pirated” means that Amazon’s site was somehow comprimised.

Amazon issued an official apology for their action, but many questions remain unanswered. My reading also indicates that this may not be the first time that Amazon has done this. I have seen a comment that Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” was yanked in the same manner. These are indeed some dark days for Amazon and its Kindle. I am sure that the controversy is far from over.