5 ms·

Having read the actual changes in the article, these are rather miniscule, which leaves me wondering why this is a big story.

mock-possum 4y ago
Think of it as the other side of the coin from book banning or book burning - why should readers be prevented from reading objectionable material in the first place? The decision rests with the reader, and no one else.
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  I would think the author might have something to say about it, or in this case the author's representative since the author in question is dead.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    The estate of the author does not have legitimate authority to change a dead authors work to increase its commercial appeal. They can legally do so, but I don't accept the legitimacy of this. The only exception is when it's implicitly or explicitly clear the author would have supported doing this, and even then I wouldn't suggest it but I wouldn't automatically call it illegitimate and would have to consider the context. If I write some great novel and then my asshole grandson decides to stop distributing the original and starts distributing a rewrite he feels will sell more copies I'll haunt his ass. I refused to watch the C.S. Lewis film adaptions because they were against the authors explicit wishes and there's a difference between having the legal right to do something and the moral right to do something. I recall that Roald Dahl LOATHED the changes to his story in the film version of Willa Wonka and refused to sell the rights to the sequel so I wouldn't at all take it for granted that he would have supported such extensive edits. If there's doubt if an author would have supported you editing their book, you should play it safe and not edit a dead authors book! If you must change it - you must continue distributing the original or make the original public domain to retain any SEMBLANCE of legitimacy.
    - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
      My take would be that once you are dead, you no longer have any say, but that is probably a minority position. I would like to see copyright shortened way up though. He died over 30 years ago now.
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        Regardless of whether or not you should have a say, it seems clear to me that telling the world someone wrote something they didn't write is morally dubious at least.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      > I recall that Roald Dahl LOATHED the changes to his story in the film version of Willa Wonka And he was right. As much as I love the movie, and I do, it's very inferior to the book.
croes 4y ago
Many small changes add up to big changes over time. Beside the fact that changing books is just wrong, except for life threatening data.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  This is overly reductive. For example, I just read American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition, a version changed from its original. Using this reductive model, that's wrong. However, it was changed by the author, which seems perfectly acceptable. Those two things are in contradiction. Either changing books isn't categorically wrong, or Neil Gaiman was wrong for changing his own book. Taking a bit of a detour, is it wrong to engage in death of the author style interpretations of text?
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    > or Neil Gaiman was wrong for changing his own book. I'd argue so. Given enough edits, you've written the Book of Theseus.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I think an artist making a derived work from their own work is totally different than a company changing an artists’ work to purely make more money. Also, there are multiple versions of American Gods in print and readers can choose which one to read. They are clearly marked. In this case the publisher is changing the only versions in print and no longer making the original versions. I think that people changing artists work is usually wrong. If a mural artist changes their mural, that’s very different from McDonalds deciding to add in milkshakes. That doesn’t mean that changing art is categorically wrong. It just means that the latter case is wrong.
  - faeriechangling 4y ago
    People regularly crap on authors for changing their own work, “Han shot first” is an outright meme, and I’m going to predict there’s an overlap between people who don’t want authors to change their own work and people who don’t want other people to change author’s work post-humously. It’s just especially egregious to change a work when you aren’t the author because fundamentally any such editor is somebody who isn’t good enough to make their own classic but is arrogant enough to think they can improve an existing one. People see how people are abusing their legal right to something that’s part of the culture in the interest of their own greed and narcissism and see that as particularly egregious.
polotics 4y ago
Well come on it's not a big story, it is a "fat" story obviously... The disconnect between the reality of kids being subjected to shaming like never before thanks to social media, and the desire to remove the word "fat" and replace it by "enormous", makes my head spin. So this is a fat story because it teaches that hiding issues behind euphemism is the way, instead of confronting problems and helping fat people turn into fit ones...
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  I don't much care if people don't want to read stories where fat children are put into humiliating situations and portrayed as greedy animalistic cretin's, but the correct solution is to not read the book, not to have some hack edit it. Many fine and underrated children's books have come out since 1964 which are smothered by the popularity of a few classics which arguably teach children the wrong lessons. It's fine to not want to read such a book or read such a book to children. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is rather mean and dark for a children's book, that's a huge part of the appeal, I would just prefer a mean dark book to remain a mean dark book instead of trying to water down the story to cash in on it's existing commercial value while trying to make it blander and tolerable by more audiences. It's hardly just Augustus Gloop who is treated in a cruel way either, it's just that he by far seems to be getting the most sympathy from the editors, but the book doesn't really teach one to be kind to say... rich spoilt children either. Changes like “But Augustus was deaf to everything except the call of his enormous stomach” to “But Augustus was ignoring everything” takes the punch and wit out of the story while not actually making it so children can't read between the lines. You're replacing a line that'll make children laugh at a fat character with one that just won't make them laugh at all and calling it an improvement.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > the correct solution is to not read the book, not to have some hack edit it. I'd even be OK with the existence of a hacked-up version, as long as it was made clear that it was a derivative work and not the original.
JohnFen 4y ago
Changing the work of an author and passing it off as the author's work is despicable and, I think, harmful. The extent of the changes don't alter the principle. At the very least, it's lying. If this is accepted practice, it means we can no longer trust that just because a work has the same title and author listed, that it's what the author actually wrote. It means that if you want to read the author's work, you can't just buy it. You'll have to engage in research to see if it had been altered at some point and identify when the alteration happened so that you can know which printings really reflect the author's intentions.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  Publishers frequently make changes in subsequent printings unless the author explicitly require that they do not. The authors are generally OK with whatever the publisher thinks makes the most money. https://www.hp-lexicon.org/differences-changes-text/ https://www.hp-lexicon.org/differences-changes-text/ The subsequent changes to the Harry Potter books, made both by the author and by the publisher, are not clearly marked.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > The authors are generally OK with whatever the publisher thinks makes the most money. Which means that it is done with the author's permission. That's fair.

mock-possum 4y ago

Think of it as the other side of the coin from book banning or book burning - why should readers be prevented from reading objectionable material in the first place? The decision rests with the reader, and no one else.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago
I would think the author might have something to say about it, or in this case the author's representative since the author in question is dead.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  The estate of the author does not have legitimate authority to change a dead authors work to increase its commercial appeal. They can legally do so, but I don't accept the legitimacy of this. The only exception is when it's implicitly or explicitly clear the author would have supported doing this, and even then I wouldn't suggest it but I wouldn't automatically call it illegitimate and would have to consider the context. If I write some great novel and then my asshole grandson decides to stop distributing the original and starts distributing a rewrite he feels will sell more copies I'll haunt his ass. I refused to watch the C.S. Lewis film adaptions because they were against the authors explicit wishes and there's a difference between having the legal right to do something and the moral right to do something. I recall that Roald Dahl LOATHED the changes to his story in the film version of Willa Wonka and refused to sell the rights to the sequel so I wouldn't at all take it for granted that he would have supported such extensive edits. If there's doubt if an author would have supported you editing their book, you should play it safe and not edit a dead authors book! If you must change it - you must continue distributing the original or make the original public domain to retain any SEMBLANCE of legitimacy.
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    My take would be that once you are dead, you no longer have any say, but that is probably a minority position. I would like to see copyright shortened way up though. He died over 30 years ago now.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Regardless of whether or not you should have a say, it seems clear to me that telling the world someone wrote something they didn't write is morally dubious at least.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > I recall that Roald Dahl LOATHED the changes to his story in the film version of Willa Wonka And he was right. As much as I love the movie, and I do, it's very inferior to the book.

croes 4y ago

Many small changes add up to big changes over time. Beside the fact that changing books is just wrong, except for life threatening data.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
This is overly reductive. For example, I just read American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition, a version changed from its original. Using this reductive model, that's wrong. However, it was changed by the author, which seems perfectly acceptable. Those two things are in contradiction. Either changing books isn't categorically wrong, or Neil Gaiman was wrong for changing his own book. Taking a bit of a detour, is it wrong to engage in death of the author style interpretations of text?
- jstarfish 4y ago
  > or Neil Gaiman was wrong for changing his own book. I'd argue so. Given enough edits, you've written the Book of Theseus.
- prepend 4y ago
  I think an artist making a derived work from their own work is totally different than a company changing an artists’ work to purely make more money. Also, there are multiple versions of American Gods in print and readers can choose which one to read. They are clearly marked. In this case the publisher is changing the only versions in print and no longer making the original versions. I think that people changing artists work is usually wrong. If a mural artist changes their mural, that’s very different from McDonalds deciding to add in milkshakes. That doesn’t mean that changing art is categorically wrong. It just means that the latter case is wrong.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  People regularly crap on authors for changing their own work, “Han shot first” is an outright meme, and I’m going to predict there’s an overlap between people who don’t want authors to change their own work and people who don’t want other people to change author’s work post-humously. It’s just especially egregious to change a work when you aren’t the author because fundamentally any such editor is somebody who isn’t good enough to make their own classic but is arrogant enough to think they can improve an existing one. People see how people are abusing their legal right to something that’s part of the culture in the interest of their own greed and narcissism and see that as particularly egregious.

polotics 4y ago

Well come on it's not a big story, it is a "fat" story obviously... The disconnect between the reality of kids being subjected to shaming like never before thanks to social media, and the desire to remove the word "fat" and replace it by "enormous", makes my head spin. So this is a fat story because it teaches that hiding issues behind euphemism is the way, instead of confronting problems and helping fat people turn into fit ones...

faeriechangling 4y ago
I don't much care if people don't want to read stories where fat children are put into humiliating situations and portrayed as greedy animalistic cretin's, but the correct solution is to not read the book, not to have some hack edit it. Many fine and underrated children's books have come out since 1964 which are smothered by the popularity of a few classics which arguably teach children the wrong lessons. It's fine to not want to read such a book or read such a book to children. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is rather mean and dark for a children's book, that's a huge part of the appeal, I would just prefer a mean dark book to remain a mean dark book instead of trying to water down the story to cash in on it's existing commercial value while trying to make it blander and tolerable by more audiences. It's hardly just Augustus Gloop who is treated in a cruel way either, it's just that he by far seems to be getting the most sympathy from the editors, but the book doesn't really teach one to be kind to say... rich spoilt children either. Changes like “But Augustus was deaf to everything except the call of his enormous stomach” to “But Augustus was ignoring everything” takes the punch and wit out of the story while not actually making it so children can't read between the lines. You're replacing a line that'll make children laugh at a fat character with one that just won't make them laugh at all and calling it an improvement.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > the correct solution is to not read the book, not to have some hack edit it. I'd even be OK with the existence of a hacked-up version, as long as it was made clear that it was a derivative work and not the original.

JohnFen 4y ago

Changing the work of an author and passing it off as the author's work is despicable and, I think, harmful. The extent of the changes don't alter the principle. At the very least, it's lying. If this is accepted practice, it means we can no longer trust that just because a work has the same title and author listed, that it's what the author actually wrote. It means that if you want to read the author's work, you can't just buy it. You'll have to engage in research to see if it had been altered at some point and identify when the alteration happened so that you can know which printings really reflect the author's intentions.

lern_too_spel 4y ago
Publishers frequently make changes in subsequent printings unless the author explicitly require that they do not. The authors are generally OK with whatever the publisher thinks makes the most money. https://www.hp-lexicon.org/differences-changes-text/ https://www.hp-lexicon.org/differences-changes-text/ The subsequent changes to the Harry Potter books, made both by the author and by the publisher, are not clearly marked.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > The authors are generally OK with whatever the publisher thinks makes the most money. Which means that it is done with the author's permission. That's fair.