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"When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers.

George Orwell died in 1950. That is 59 years ago.

Why are his books still under copy right.

Copy right was originally intended to ensure that men of Ideas would be guaranteed compensation for their works. I can understand that. Originally copy rights were extended for twenty years (typically an author would die before the copy right ran out). Now copy rights are immortal. I could even understand having copy right protection extending to the life of the author or perhaps even the life of the designated heir. But fifty years for a book is just nonsense.

Copy right protection is very likely preventing many books from being read. Books that today could be freely down loaded from a central data server and read can not be because copy right protections prevent it.

As a rabid capitalist I am all for profit but the people profiting on Orwell’s work today I will wager have no relationship at all with Orwell and likely as not even with the original publisher.

At some point knowledge and literature should enter the public domain and it should not take fifty years and it should not be indefinite.

For you information...

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The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998 extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Since the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship. The Act extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier.[1] Copyright protection for works published prior to January 1, 1978 was increased by 20 years to a total of 95 years from their publication date.

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EU Proposes Extending Copyright Term Length to 95 Years
http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2008/07/17/eu-proposes-extending-copyright-term-length-95-years
Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 17, 2008 - 9:02am.

Brussels - A proposal to extend copyright term lengths from 50 to 95 years has passed in the European Commission, and will now move to a vote before the European Parliament.