7 ms·

> If the publisher shutdown and the IP on the books went into legal limbo, then the exact same thing would happen - has happened - to numerous works. You are t

> If the publisher shutdown and the IP on the books went into legal limbo, then the exact same thing would happen - has happened - to numerous works. You are talking about works that became incidentally unavailable for commercial reasons (not that many people are interested in 22 year-old strategy video games). The Dr. Seuss books are an example of intentional book banning on political grounds. Their publisher also didn't "shut down": they delibrately decided to stop publishing these books because they deemed them Politically Incorrect: https://apnews.com/article/dr-seuss-books-racist-images-d8ed18335c03319d72f443594c174513 https://apnews.com/article/dr-seuss-books-racist-images-d8ed... > “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” Dr. Seuss Enterprises told The Associated Press in a statement that coincided with the late author and illustrator’s birthday. And now eBay has decided that if you legally own a copy, you can't sell it to another reader, because it contains Dangerous Ideas from which the American mind must be protected.

mcv 6y ago
> (not that many people are interested in 22 year-old strategy video games) I recently started a game of Alpha Centauri again. Good times.
ModernMech 6y ago
> The Dr. Seuss books are an example of intentional book banning on political grounds. As always, the only dynamic considered here by the publisher is money. They have made a calculation that doing this will benefit their bottom line in the long run. That's the free market and the way the system is designed to work. You may not like their decision, but it's their decision to make. That's the freedom they enjoy under our system. You have the freedom to complain about it and no one will stop you, but everyone is free to act however they best they see fit. > And now eBay has decided that if you legally own a copy, you can't sell it to another reader, because it contains Dangerous Ideas from which the American mind must be protected. eBay has not decided this. They have no power to decide this for you in our free market capitalist system. They have decided they don't want to facilitate the transaction, which is their right as a free enterprise. If you own the book you are still free to sell it to anyone you want. eBay is not going to help you though, and forcing them to do so would be against free market principles.
- NeverFade 6y ago
  The free market gets distorted under monopoly conditions. If I'm Disney, and I own millions of works, I can start banning some of them on a whim. My bottom line won't be meaningfully affected. > They have decided they don't want to facilitate the transaction, which is their right as a free enterprise. It was the legal right (duty, in fact) of Soviet commissars to vet any book before publication. The net effect was book-banning. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it won't lead to catastrophic consequences. Standard Oil's complete monopolistic takeover of the US oil market was also legal at its time. Then we decided we can't live with these results and made laws against them.
  - ModernMech 6y ago
    I don't know why you are blurring the lines between "single publisher decides to stop publishing book", "mega conglomerate decides to stop publishing media", and "authoritarian government vets all books before publication". The topic of discussion is a single publisher making a decision for themselves. You are all the way over in Soviet land talking about book banning and government censorship. None of that is happening, and the slope isn't nearly as slippery as you're imagining. Anyone in this country is free to write, publish, and sell works with content identical to those in the books Dr. Seuss Enterprises decided to stop publishing, as long as they don't have images and words similar enough to violate their copyright. The ideas contained within are not banned by any government or monopoly.
    - lsaferite 6y ago
      > the slope isn't nearly as slippery as you're imagining I had a great chuckle at this. The issue that is being tossed into a big pile of other issues is simple. Ebay, a private company, has taken the path of banning the sale of those now-discontinued books. This action is totally within their rights and is fully legal for them to do. You can, rightly, talk about the content of _this specific book_ as much as you want, but that's not the broader issue here. What is riling up some people is the idea that in the US we are, ostensibly, a country founded on freedom and they feel like that freedom is being encroach upon. You seem to feel like them banning the sale of the book is no big deal, but they are in a large market position and them preventing the secondary market sale has a large impact. The even bigger issue is that what we are seeing are very vocal groups that push the idea that we have to prevent these kinds of thoughts from being in our society at all. They force these ideas onto the greater community as a whole by attacking any entity they deem as non-compliant. As a result you have companies preempt that attack and voluntarily comply. To use the theme from the previous poster, they are voluntarily banning or self-censoring. This _is_ an attack on freedom though. You cannot have freedom of speech if you make it so only the speech you _like_ is effectively allowed. And I purposefully said effectively and not legally. This obviously doesn't get into the broader topics of corporate censorship. I have many thoughts, some of them conflicting, about that as a whole. The simplest distillation would be that as long as your free speech is not encroaching into illegal territory then I don't feel like you should be excluded from society, even if your communications are repugnant. So, back to where this started. You claim the 'slope isn't nearly as slippery' as they were imagining. Perhaps today that is the case. Maybe it's the same next week or next year. At some point the thoughts being attacked may very well align with your personal beliefs and _then_ the shape of the slope will be drastically different _for you_.
delecti 6y ago
The books are not being banned. You can still give money in exchange with anyone who has copy they're willing to sell. It's just that the Seuss estate and eBay have both decided they don't want to be involved in the transaction. And "Politically Incorrect" is sure a gentle way of describing the content. Maybe you should quote the line from the article you linked which describes some of the "politically incorrect" bits? Or do you recognize that they're actually pretty offensive. I sure wouldn't want to use my printing equipment to print copies of that "Politically Incorrect" book either, and I'd have a problem with the suggestion that someone should be able to force me to.
- NeverFade 6y ago
  > And "Politically Incorrect" is sure a gentle way of describing the content. Maybe you should quote the line from the article you linked which describes some of the "politically incorrect" bits? Or do you recognize that they're actually pretty offensive. President Obama praised, quoted, and recommended Dr. Seuss's books in official press releases throughout his presidency, all the way to his last year as president - 2015: https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/barack-and-michelle-obama-praised-dr-seuss-during-presidency/ https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/barack-and-michelle-obama-prai... But now the Woke Mob has come for Dr. Seuss, and we're all instructed to recite that Dr. Seuss is racist, was racist, has always been racist. To quote Orwell: "The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia."
  - delecti 6y ago
    By my count, there are somewhere in the range of ~70 Dr. Seuss books (I'm too lazy to count, and that's more than enough for my point). They've stopped publishing six of them. That's less than 10%. He hasn't been cancelled, it's just that a few of the more egregious books are being discontinued. Horton Hears a Who? Still a great message. The Grinch? Still great, both versions (there might be a third now, who can keep track). People making a big deal out of the cancelling are blowing it into a far bigger thing than it is. He's not being cancelled, those works are just being recognized as offensive. There's no gotcha to Obama having praised some of his books, because those books are still worthy of praise.
vineyardmike 6y ago
> it contains Dangerous Ideas from which the American mind must be protected. Have you actually seen the imagery? This is not a good-faith characterization of what is happening. The images are just rude racist imagery (saying a chinese person has "slanted eyes" for example) that the IP owners were embarrassed by.
rualca 6y ago
> The Dr. Seuss books are an example of intentional book banning on political grounds. No, it really isn't. When a book edition goes out of print that does not mean it's banned. If the editor decides not to invest in a re-edit ion that does not mean it's banned. If you go to a book store and it doesn't have a book that does not mean it's banned. If you go to a library and it doesn't have a book in its inventory that does not mean it's banned. If you lack arguments, please don't fabricate lies and misrepresentations like that. That only makes you look dishonest and desperate to grasp to an argument that even yourself acknowledge has no basis nor merit.

mcv 6y ago

> (not that many people are interested in 22 year-old strategy video games) I recently started a game of Alpha Centauri again. Good times.

ModernMech 6y ago

> The Dr. Seuss books are an example of intentional book banning on political grounds. As always, the only dynamic considered here by the publisher is money. They have made a calculation that doing this will benefit their bottom line in the long run. That's the free market and the way the system is designed to work. You may not like their decision, but it's their decision to make. That's the freedom they enjoy under our system. You have the freedom to complain about it and no one will stop you, but everyone is free to act however they best they see fit. > And now eBay has decided that if you legally own a copy, you can't sell it to another reader, because it contains Dangerous Ideas from which the American mind must be protected. eBay has not decided this. They have no power to decide this for you in our free market capitalist system. They have decided they don't want to facilitate the transaction, which is their right as a free enterprise. If you own the book you are still free to sell it to anyone you want. eBay is not going to help you though, and forcing them to do so would be against free market principles.

NeverFade 6y ago
The free market gets distorted under monopoly conditions. If I'm Disney, and I own millions of works, I can start banning some of them on a whim. My bottom line won't be meaningfully affected. > They have decided they don't want to facilitate the transaction, which is their right as a free enterprise. It was the legal right (duty, in fact) of Soviet commissars to vet any book before publication. The net effect was book-banning. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it won't lead to catastrophic consequences. Standard Oil's complete monopolistic takeover of the US oil market was also legal at its time. Then we decided we can't live with these results and made laws against them.
- ModernMech 6y ago
  I don't know why you are blurring the lines between "single publisher decides to stop publishing book", "mega conglomerate decides to stop publishing media", and "authoritarian government vets all books before publication". The topic of discussion is a single publisher making a decision for themselves. You are all the way over in Soviet land talking about book banning and government censorship. None of that is happening, and the slope isn't nearly as slippery as you're imagining. Anyone in this country is free to write, publish, and sell works with content identical to those in the books Dr. Seuss Enterprises decided to stop publishing, as long as they don't have images and words similar enough to violate their copyright. The ideas contained within are not banned by any government or monopoly.
  - lsaferite 6y ago
    > the slope isn't nearly as slippery as you're imagining I had a great chuckle at this. The issue that is being tossed into a big pile of other issues is simple. Ebay, a private company, has taken the path of banning the sale of those now-discontinued books. This action is totally within their rights and is fully legal for them to do. You can, rightly, talk about the content of _this specific book_ as much as you want, but that's not the broader issue here. What is riling up some people is the idea that in the US we are, ostensibly, a country founded on freedom and they feel like that freedom is being encroach upon. You seem to feel like them banning the sale of the book is no big deal, but they are in a large market position and them preventing the secondary market sale has a large impact. The even bigger issue is that what we are seeing are very vocal groups that push the idea that we have to prevent these kinds of thoughts from being in our society at all. They force these ideas onto the greater community as a whole by attacking any entity they deem as non-compliant. As a result you have companies preempt that attack and voluntarily comply. To use the theme from the previous poster, they are voluntarily banning or self-censoring. This _is_ an attack on freedom though. You cannot have freedom of speech if you make it so only the speech you _like_ is effectively allowed. And I purposefully said effectively and not legally. This obviously doesn't get into the broader topics of corporate censorship. I have many thoughts, some of them conflicting, about that as a whole. The simplest distillation would be that as long as your free speech is not encroaching into illegal territory then I don't feel like you should be excluded from society, even if your communications are repugnant. So, back to where this started. You claim the 'slope isn't nearly as slippery' as they were imagining. Perhaps today that is the case. Maybe it's the same next week or next year. At some point the thoughts being attacked may very well align with your personal beliefs and _then_ the shape of the slope will be drastically different _for you_.

delecti 6y ago

The books are not being banned. You can still give money in exchange with anyone who has copy they're willing to sell. It's just that the Seuss estate and eBay have both decided they don't want to be involved in the transaction. And "Politically Incorrect" is sure a gentle way of describing the content. Maybe you should quote the line from the article you linked which describes some of the "politically incorrect" bits? Or do you recognize that they're actually pretty offensive. I sure wouldn't want to use my printing equipment to print copies of that "Politically Incorrect" book either, and I'd have a problem with the suggestion that someone should be able to force me to.

NeverFade 6y ago
> And "Politically Incorrect" is sure a gentle way of describing the content. Maybe you should quote the line from the article you linked which describes some of the "politically incorrect" bits? Or do you recognize that they're actually pretty offensive. President Obama praised, quoted, and recommended Dr. Seuss's books in official press releases throughout his presidency, all the way to his last year as president - 2015: https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/barack-and-michelle-obama-praised-dr-seuss-during-presidency/ https://nypost.com/2021/03/03/barack-and-michelle-obama-prai... But now the Woke Mob has come for Dr. Seuss, and we're all instructed to recite that Dr. Seuss is racist, was racist, has always been racist. To quote Orwell: "The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia."
- delecti 6y ago
  By my count, there are somewhere in the range of ~70 Dr. Seuss books (I'm too lazy to count, and that's more than enough for my point). They've stopped publishing six of them. That's less than 10%. He hasn't been cancelled, it's just that a few of the more egregious books are being discontinued. Horton Hears a Who? Still a great message. The Grinch? Still great, both versions (there might be a third now, who can keep track). People making a big deal out of the cancelling are blowing it into a far bigger thing than it is. He's not being cancelled, those works are just being recognized as offensive. There's no gotcha to Obama having praised some of his books, because those books are still worthy of praise.

vineyardmike 6y ago

> it contains Dangerous Ideas from which the American mind must be protected. Have you actually seen the imagery? This is not a good-faith characterization of what is happening. The images are just rude racist imagery (saying a chinese person has "slanted eyes" for example) that the IP owners were embarrassed by.

rualca 6y ago

> The Dr. Seuss books are an example of intentional book banning on political grounds. No, it really isn't. When a book edition goes out of print that does not mean it's banned. If the editor decides not to invest in a re-edit ion that does not mean it's banned. If you go to a book store and it doesn't have a book that does not mean it's banned. If you go to a library and it doesn't have a book in its inventory that does not mean it's banned. If you lack arguments, please don't fabricate lies and misrepresentations like that. That only makes you look dishonest and desperate to grasp to an argument that even yourself acknowledge has no basis nor merit.