George Orwell’s estate has hit back at suggestions that it has embraced Big Brother values by objecting to T-shirts bearing the slogan “1984 is already here”.

TorrentFreak caused an internet storm yesterday when it reported that representatives from the Orwell estate had contacted CafePress, alleging copyright infringement.

CafePress took the designs offline. The T-shirts’ seller, internet radio host Josh Hadley, told TorrentFreak: “First off is the irony of the estate of George Orwell being all Orwellian, but second is that you can’t copyright a number.” He added: “This is blatant abuse of the copyright system and, more off, it’s a ridiculous attempt to control something that needs no control. I am in the process of having this image retouched and added to the store on my current site, as I will not allow this kind of abuse of authority to stand.”

The news incited warnings that the dystopian future where free speech is banned predicted by Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four had arrived. Bill Hamilton, a literary agent at AM Heath and the executor of Orwell’s estate, dismissed the story as “absolutely untrue”. Hamilton contacted CafePress after a member of the Orwell Society let him know it was selling “unlicensed merchandise … specifically beer mugs with photographs whose copyright is owned by various parties including Orwell, and quotes by Orwell”.

Josh Hadley’s T-shirts as they appeared before CafePress removed them from its online shop. Photograph: CafePress

Hamilton said: “I asked CafePress to take down material that was in breach of Orwell copyright, and without checking with me which items I was referring to, [they] unilaterally took down everything with any Orwell reference, including T-shirts.

“I am well aware that there is no copyright in titles or names, and that some Orwell phrases are in the public domain, eg ‘Big Brother is watching you.’ I have explained to a couple of the makers of such items that I hadn’t asked those items to be withdrawn because I have no right to do so.”

Hamilton added that “quotes of a certain length do come under copyright, and it is indisputable that the photographs are owned by various parties”, with no permission to use them asked, or granted.

“I can also point out that the Orwell estate has never itself licensed any merchandise, and we have to take care because Orwell can so easily be quoted in favour of causes that he didn’t espouse,” said Hamilton.

Last year, the agent wrote to the New York Times after Amazon quoted Orwell during its clash with publisher Hachette over ebook terms. “The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if ‘publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them,’” wrote Amazon. “Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.”

But the full quote from Orwell ran: “The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if other publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Hamilton pointed out in his letter to the New York Times that the quote had been taken out of context.

“This is about as close as one can get to the Ministry of Truth and its doublespeak: turning the facts inside out to get a piece of propaganda across,” wrote Hamilton. “As the literary executor for the Orwell estate, I’m both appalled and wryly amused that Amazon’s tactics should come straight out of Orwell’s own nightmare dystopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four.”