I am still astounded by the news that Amazon actually removed legally purchased copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from people's Kindles, upon discovering a problem with the distribution rights. Click HERE for the story.

I really don't care that they refunded the purchasers' money. That's not the point. Their terms of service do not allow anything of the sort. If there is a problem with the distribution rights, by al means take the book off the list of items available for purchase, but leave the already-purchased copies alone.

I wouldn't expect a brick-and-mortar store representative to come into my house and remove print copies of books. So I would not expect an electronic version of a book that I purchased legally to be "confiscated".

So in protest, I surfed to the free, legal copies of both books from gutenberg.net.au. I read Animal Farm last night. Next up: 1984. It'd been a long time since I read either of these, so I was due for a refresher course anyway. Down with Big Brother!