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Some people who bought Kindle versions of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 recently got E-mail saying that there was a "problem" with the books and that the books would be deleted from their Kindles the next time they synced.  Various blogs, including Technologizer, claimed that the publisher had changed its mind about offering electronic books and Amazon removed them from everybody’s electronic shelves.

The "problem" was actually that Amazon had been selling unauthorized copies of those books from a company that sells public domain eBooks.  Unfortunately, those books are still under copyright in the U.S., and Amazon removed the books upon being notified of the problem.  Amazon also refunded the customers their money.

Apparently this isn’t the first time that Amazon has done this, either.  According to BetaNews, Amazon had also sold unauthorized copies of Ayn Rand’s books, the Twilight series and, briefly, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

While this highlights a serious problem with Amazon’s copyright clearance process, it also illustrates that you aren’t really "buying" books for your Kindle, you’re actually renting them.  You have to wonder what other events could prompt Amazon to remove books from users’ libraries.

Steve Mueller (12 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

I do software development and quality assurance professionally. I'm the owner/Web master of Silicon Valley Pocket PC (http://www.svpocketpc.com) and the founder of the WinMoInfo social network. I've had Windows CE devices since 1998. See more about my PDA history at my history page (more than you probably will ever care about).