18 ms·

Roald Dahl ebooks remotely updated to censored versions after purchase

420 points by nhchris 4y ago

ftxbro 4y ago
Something about this makes me wonder how Richard Stallman is doing these days.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Obviously this is just a coincidence but it is amusing that he has been pretty much removed from public view right around the time most of the stuff he warned about finally came true. He has been ranting on about ebooks since they were invented. But it took over a decade for the “technically they could do this” to become “they are doing this”
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    >Obviously this is just a coincidence Are you sure about that? Given the concerted smear campaign against him?
    - snerbles 4y ago
      Pretty sure parent comment was being sarcastic.
    - op00to 4y ago
      Stating Epstein rape victim was 'Entirely Willing' is horrible and disgusting. Calling it a ‘smear campaign’ is dishonest.
      - RobotToaster 4y ago
        It would be, if he ever said that, but it's a lie. What he said was "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates." He has also stated that Epstein should be considered a serial rapist.
        cauch 4y ago
        That sounds like Boris Johnson's defense (about the partygate) "yes, the investigation shown that people were hugging and partying right in front of my eyes, but you have no proof that my brain recorded these information, so you have no proof I've lied when I've said I did not notice". Presenting herself as entirely willing does not mean that suddenly the person who is "consuming" is not participating to a sexual assault when this person is conveniently closing a blind eye on either or not she has been coerced: Epstein already had a bad reputation and was a registered sex offended at the time, including for coercing minor to have sex. It is just bs to play coy and say "weeeell, maybe he did not know", and just show the person saying that is going out of their way in semantic to reshape the discourse into victim blaming.
  - jay_kyburz 4y ago
    My ebooks are doing just fine on my hard disk DRM free. Don't blame the technology. My next reader will be a Kobo, but my Kindle that is not connected to the internet is still going strong.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Stallman was always in support of drm free ebooks. The problem is that virtually all consumers are using drm restricted books.
      - op00to 4y ago
        Huh. It’s almost as if consumers just don’t care as much as nerds do.
        oska 4y ago
        They don't have the foresight to care early on. They certainly do care when what has been warned about starts getting implemented.
- geodel 4y ago
  Not much better I'd guess. Last time he was news when woke crowd was really after his blood.
  - flangola7 4y ago
    I still have yet to hear a coherent and succinct definition of "woke."
    - stkdump 4y ago
      It's a smear word for 'people that care about people'
      - peanutcrisis 4y ago
        From the perspective of someone left-leaning, it’s an illiberal faction of the left that has very specific beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality that not everyone agrees on, and an extreme but unsubstantiated set of explanations for them and how to resolve them. They’re very good at baiting and switching too, using language that we agree to be good and can get behind, but don’t mean what we think it means. Because of this sophistry, it’s easy for them to denounce their opponents as morally bad people for rejecting their views, when their views weren’t the good things we thought it meant in the first place. This moving of goal posts is precisely what you’re doing right now. Someone who explains the same thing better than I do: https://helenpluckrose.substack.com/p/defining-woke-and-wokeness https://helenpluckrose.substack.com/p/defining-woke-and-woke...
        stkdump 4y ago
        Oh, I am sorry. You are right. It's not intended as a smear word at all. Thanks for your explanation.
        account42 4y ago
        Oh, it is absolutely a derogatory term - it's just that the people it is applied to are really not 'people that care about people'.
- krapp 4y ago
  Hacker News hasn't burned down recently so I assume he's doing fine.
- op00to 4y ago
  Still eating toe jam and believing raping children is ok.
nhchris 4y ago
Unpaywalled: https://archive.fo/OSLQN https://archive.fo/OSLQN Excerpt: Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed.
baremetal 4y ago
Obligatory Orwell quote: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Does this apply to the case where the owner (rather than the state), makes slight edits (this case)? I mean, it is not like the books have been rewritten or history erased, has it?
  - nhchris 4y ago
    Absent from your question is the author [1]. The owners may have the legal right to edit and distribute the text, but by passing it off as Roald Dahl's words, they are perpetrating fraud against their readers. And even if it were the author doing it, it would be dishonest to have multiple versions under the same title, unless there was a note at least briefly mentioning alterations. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017707
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      Penguin, the publisher, has decided to also publish the classic versions: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/penguin-publish-classic-roald-dahl-books-after-backlash-97441402 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/penguin-publish-cl...
      - pseudo0 4y ago
        So they are removing the original copies from e-readers and then forcing people to buy it again? What a grift.
      - justsomehnguy 4y ago
A_D_E_P_T 4y ago
Time to back up your ebook libraries. Step one: Download Calibre - https://calibre-ebook.com https://calibre-ebook.com Step two: Install Alf's DRM removal tools for Kindle bought ebooks https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com
- gorwell 4y ago
  Or buy the physical version. Buy it now for anything you want to be able to read in its original form.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    Beware print on demand books, those might be the new woke versions
- smcin 4y ago
  You don't get any trouble from Amazon for using Alf?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - smeej 4y ago
    Don't put the Alfred version back on your Kindle. That one stays local on your hard drive.
  - criddell 4y ago
    For years they didn’t seem to care that the DRM was broken. These days though, they’ve stepped up and the latest version hasn’t been broken yet. There are some less than idea workarounds (like getting books in older versions with crappier typography). I periodically check in on the DeDRM tools hoping that KFX has been totally broken, but that hasn’t happened yet.
- sphars 4y ago
  Alf no longer updates his repo[0], best to switch to noDRM's fork[1] [0]: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools [1]: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools
Syntonicles 4y ago
When I first read this, I was furious with the publisher. While I'm still disgusted by the behavior I am under the impression that the Dahl estate supports the historical revisions. So what response should the company receive? Boycott? Hacktivism? Flagrant piracy? Perhaps not. Should we lobby to limit the rights of an estate edit posthumously? Should a blurb indicating the edit be required on the cover of the book? Instead, I think a more grassroots effort is desperately needed. We need something akin to a software license that an individual author can include in their contracts with publishers and in their estate planning. It should be entirely frictionless and unambiguous. It should be the easiest path for an author to take. I propose that a small foundation be created for the purpose of its creation and dissemination; and that a public website / petition exist so that any author publishing today can see that the idea is endorsed by the very people who inspired them to become writers.
- breck 4y ago
  We need to abolish (c)opywrong law: https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h...
- JPKab 4y ago
  The Dahl estate doesn't own the rights to his books anymore.
- paxys 4y ago
  Here's the solution – forget about all this and download the real version of the book from the internet.
  - Syntonicles 4y ago
    For me, maybe. For millions of unsuspecting 8-year old children getting their version from the school library?
    - koolba 4y ago
      Teaching kids how to pirate books off lib genesis would be both cost effective and high impact.
hodgesrm 4y ago
> Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed. I like HN because we make an effort to elevate the conversation, ask interesting questions, and gain insights from each other. But in this case, these people are just assholes.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Many decades from now, this comment of yours will be edited by your estate to remove linguistic violence.
- ajot 4y ago
  Fine, I'll bait. How are they assholes? If I buy a book[0], I expect to be able to read it as such, and not read a re-edition of it. [0] Although I understand that in most ebook stores, you're buying a license to the book, and not the book itself. This may be true and legally sound, but as an end consumer it still bothers me.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    I think the person you're replying to was saying that the book publishers were assholes for changing the books and automatically updating existing customer copies. Not that the article author is an asshole for being upset about this practice. (I agree that the wording of their comment is somewhat ambiguous.)
    - hodgesrm 4y ago
      Your interpretation correct. It made me really mad, and I didn't write clearly. My comment was definitely below average for HN.
smcin 4y ago
Insert obligatory mention of: Amazon removes some editions of Orwell's 1984 from Kindle Devices after issue with owner of book rights (2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8930904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8930904 NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...
- smsm42 4y ago
  At least they could explain this one away with "it's just a copyright issue, we're not censoring anything". Here it's plain and open censorship, initiated by the publisher.
  - 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4y ago
    Aren't both versions freely available? Seems strange to call something censorship when nothing has been censored.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      Replacing one copy with another in your own device is a fairly intrusive act. We don't have a word for it yet, given that classical censorship developed in the era of printed books, when such activities were technologically impossible. But I would say that it falls under penumbra of censorship because of the intent. And the intent is to remove certain speech from average reader's view without the reader's consent. Censorship does not have to be total in order to be censorship. Even in authoritarian states, small oppositional media outlets may be tolerated, so that foreign accusations of media control can be rebuked: "Hey, look at Radio X, we are definitely not censoring them." But their reach is carefully kept limited.
      - justinclift 4y ago
        > We don't have a word for it yet "Computer Fraud and Abuse" seems like it would cover it? :) Here in Australia, maybe "Unauthorised access with intent" too. Would need real lawyers/court to figure it out though.
Vanit 4y ago
Time for everyone to overreact and let the culture war theatrics disguise politicians' dismal care for the systems they're actually supposed to be running. If you're finding yourself enraged over this, you need to question your priorities and if the people driving this content have your interests at heart. Spoilers; they don't.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Not enraged. More a feeling of “huh, maybe those free software extremists might have had a point after all.” Stallman has been warning us about the theoretical risks of ebooks for a long time. But it’s taken so long to actually see the possibilities become realities.
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    > Stallman has been warning us Do you mean that Richard Mathew Lotfman that created the concept of closed source while working for Microsoft at MIT?
- dqpb 4y ago
  [dead]
quadrifoliate 4y ago
The article is paywalled, can anyone confirm that this is actually remote updates? If so, what's the text that shows that? The only part I can read is the sub-heading, which says "Puffin announces plans to publish a classic collection as it emerges online libraries are being automatically updated with sensitivity changes." This is not the same as remotely updating a version that you have on your Kindle. Rather, it would be like a library receiving an updated version of the book, which you then check out -- which could totally happen in the physical world as well.
- nhchris 4y ago
  Unpaywalled: https://archive.fo/OSLQN https://archive.fo/OSLQN Key paragraphs: Owners of Roald Dahl ebooks are having their libraries automatically updated with the new censored versions containing hundreds of changes to language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race. Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed. [..] Clarissa Aykroyd, 43, who works in children’s publishing, reported on social media that ebooks she bought before 2020 had been changed. She told The Times: “It feels Orwellian that we are having the updated versions forced upon us and has made me weary of ebooks. “I assumed that because the changes to the work were so big that I would be given the option of whether to download it.”
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  From the sound of it, someone had bought the book, didn't have it downloaded anymore, downloaded it and it was the old version. They then deleted it and downloaded it again and it was the new version. So not really remotely updated. https://twitter.com/stoneandthestar/status/1628770379782139904?cxt=HHwWgMC9ufyBx5otAAAA https://twitter.com/stoneandthestar/status/16287703797821399... This also all happened before the decision was announced to publish both the original and the new versions, so it may have already changed again.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > can anyone confirm that this is actually remote updates? No need to read an article for that; if you dig through the settings on a Kindle, there's an option to allow automatic book updates (probably enabled by default). The updates happen automatically, in the background, when the device syncs, without confirmation or presenting a list of changes.
k_sze 4y ago
1. Shouldn’t it be possible to argue that consumers specifically bought a particular revision of a book and don’t want any new revision? 2. Better yet, shouldn’t we just have a system where consumers have access to all revisions of a book? We’re talking about digital records, not physical books that need to be printed and shipped, after all.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  When you buy an ebook, what are you actually buying?
  - can16358p 4y ago
    Nothing. Or perhaps "buying the ability to access the book, where the provider can alter/censor/revoke any time without prior notice" if we really want to use the word "buy".
  - smsm42 4y ago
    A privilege to temporarily view the content on devices that the seller approves, as long as they approve. This privilege can be revoked at any time, including for reasons having nothing to do with you (such as the seller having a fight with the copyright holder), and the content can be modified or removed at any moment. And you pay for that more than for the paper copy, because it sucks to be a sucker.
- nhchris 4y ago
  > a system where consumers have access to all revisions of a book A key component of censorship or falsification is hiding the fact that it even takes place. They are tools of deception, and if you tell people exactly how you are deceiving them, it is no longer effective.
  - teolandon 4y ago
    Well they're doing a bad job at that then, since everyone knows that this is happening.
hilbert42 4y ago
A class action lawsuit against the publisher ought to fix it. Failing that then deliberate mass piracy of the original works will. These bastards need to be taught a lesson.
- bawolff 4y ago
  On what basis? You can't just sue people because you dont like something they did. It has to actually be illegal.
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    If I buy or license something in good faith and the seller or licensee changes it after the contract is set or done is not the way business is normally conducted. It's a breach of contract. Here, the publisher has altered the contract without my permission or knowledge. I no longer have what I paid for. As far as I'm concerned the publisher has not only deceived me but also has committed fraud. _ Edit: here's an analogy: I license Windows in perpetuity on my computer (which is the usual arrangement), and unbeknownst to me Microsoft has placed a timer within the code to disable the O/S after say 18 months then all hell would break loose. This is effectively what the publisher has done here (the contractual mechanism is the same).
    - bawolff 4y ago
      IANAL, but i feel this argument would fail since the change wasn't really material. If they cut half the book that would be one thing, but a paragraph changed is a pretty different matter (in the windows example - a kill switch would be obviously bad, some random changes in the interface after an update would be business as usual). Plus there is probably some shrink wrap agreement with the kindle saying that amazon could do this (which if true) would make it hard to argue you were decieved.
      - kragen 4y ago
        in this case the change was so material that it has made national news in dozens of articles and both the prime minister and the queen have criticized it
sitzkrieg 4y ago
Richard Stallman's far fetched sounding examples become more and more true with each day
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  The modern day Cassandra
  - flangola7 4y ago
    Who?
    - hidroto 4y ago
      cassandra is a woman from a greek myth that was cursed to make prophecies that would always be true but no one would believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra
      - thaumasiotes 4y ago
        That wouldn't be much of a curse. If you get to make whatever future you want, who cares whether anyone believes you in advance? Cassandra was just able to see the future (and no one would believe her). Tangentially, I think it's interesting that Greek mythology takes such a clear stand on the nature of time travel: it's possible, but history (past, present, or future) can't be altered. That is one of a couple of rival models in modern science fiction, and generally not a particularly popular one.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  True. Whatever disagreement people may have with his free software movement, it's undeniable that the man saw far into the future. His "Right to Read" story always hits hard: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html It's frightening to watch this cyberpunk hellscape unfold.
JPKab 4y ago
Fya: Thank Netflix for this. They own all rights to Dahl's books. https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights-to-roald-dahls-childrens-books-3393120 https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights... The Roald Dahl Story Company owns the rights, and authorized Penguins changes. They are owned by Netflix. So no, this isn't disinformation you censorious hall monitors. https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-roald-dahl-story-company https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-ro... https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/netflix-is-acquiring-the-rights-to-roald-dahls-books https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/netflix-is-acquiring-the-r...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paxys 4y ago
  Netflix has not taken over book publishing. Penguin retained those rights, and they are the ones making the changes.
  - JPKab 4y ago
    Wrong! https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-roald-dahl-story-company https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-ro... RDSC had to approve the changes.
    - paxys 4y ago
      > RDSC had to approve the changes. Where in the link does it say that?
- berkes 4y ago
  You've pasted this numerous times in this thread. And been told just as often you are plain wrong. Why are you spreading this misinformation?
  - JPKab 4y ago
rufus_foreman 4y ago
"I've warned my publishers that if they later on so much as change a single comma in one of my books, they will never see another word from me. Never! Ever! ... When I am gone, if that happens, then I’ll wish mighty Thor knocks very hard on their heads with his Mjolnir. Or I will send along the 'enormous crocodile' to gobble them up." -- Roald Dahl, 1982
- kelnos 4y ago
  I assume, though, that Dahl's estate later gave the publishers permission. So Thor should come visit the people administrating his estate.
- jl6 4y ago
  I think what he’s really asking for there is some Marvel crossover movies?
goosedragons 4y ago
This isn't that surprising. Kindle has a feature called "Automatic Book Update" and when a publisher releases a new version it will update your book automatically... Usually the changes are pretty minor, fixed typos, maybe a movie cover or a new introduction. You can turn it off although I don't think you can roll back versions?
- pharrington 4y ago
  If the UX for the updates is to ask for confirmation for each update, along with a decent summary changelog, that's fine. Am I wrong in assuming the UX is not this, but something much more automatic?
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    It's automatic. Some titles it doesn't seem to work for and you have to update manually but for those that do there's no changelog or confirmation and the update happens when you sync.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Right, it's automatic. There's no confirmation, and no changelog. I have it enabled, but stuff like this makes me consider disabling it. I'd be fine if there was a way to limit the updates to typo and grammar fixes, and reject content changes, but of course Amazon isn't going to implement a feature like that without something like a government telling it to do so. (I do back up my ebooks right after purchasing, though, so at least I have "originals".)
throwoutway 4y ago
This kind of stuff would make a libertarian actually want some regulation. I've started buying more paperback books lately, despite preferring digital
- kragen 4y ago
  perhaps it would make a libertarian want to abolish copyright
underwater 4y ago
The whole idea of renting books rather then owning them is gross, and I deeply regret purchasing a Kindle. But I don't understand the hand wringing about the publisher changing newer editions of the book. All media either changes with the times to find a new audience, or faces obsolescence. My generation grew up watching Romeo + Juliet and 10 Things I Hate About You, rather than pouring over the original Shakespearean plays. The changes in Roald Dahl's books are limited to asides about characters or superfluous details that are archaic. We are not loosing a literary gem by dropping the cheap "Wong number" joke from the Great Glass Elevator. It's not like this is some new thing, either. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was edited after publishing by Roald Dahl himself, because having Oompa Loompas be enslaved pygmies from deepest darkest Africa is kinda shitty.
- nhchris 4y ago
  > My generation grew up watching Romeo + Juliet and 10 Things I Hate About You, rather than pouring over the original Shakespearean plays. But you were not deceived into thinking those were the originals.
- bawolff 4y ago
  > My generation grew up watching Romeo + Juliet and 10 Things I Hate About You, rather than pouring over the original Shakespearean plays. Umm, im pretty sure im the same generation and we were required to pour over those in school. If you mean the average person isn't reading Shakespeare for fun, i think you would have to go back many many generations. For that matter, he was probably never "read" for fun by the average person (his plays were of course watched by the average person once upon a time)
  - fjeifisjf 4y ago
    [dead]
  - sclarisse 4y ago
    You can pour over whatever you like on your own time, but if it’s for school, you have to pore over it, or you’ll be dinged for spelling errors.
bawolff 4y ago
> The censored edition of Matilda has removed a reference to Conrad as an author read by the protagonist and replaced him with Jane Austen. Wait what? That's a pretty bizarre thing to change. Really does feel orwellian to change the authors being referenced.
- toast0 4y ago
  This change I feel is one of the least objectionable, IMHO. The point of the paragraph seems to be that Mathilda read kind of stuffy old books, and fed her imagination with them. If the namedropped authors aren't well known by today's children, why not adjust them? It doesn't much change the tone and it's not really relevant to the plot. I do think there's something a bit off in selecting an American writer instead of a Brit though. That and replacing ladies and gentlemen specifically with folks removes some of the Britishness and offends me as an American. At the same time, these edits feel substantial and I don't think they should be pushed without consent of the purchaser. Otoh, I would love for ebooks to magically get mistakes fixed (and even more so, if I could report mistakes, so they could get fixed).
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I think the prior paragraph connoted "adventurous, swashbuckling globe-trotter—a page at a time" and the new one connotes "likes to read classics", as far as how they contribute to characterization. Pretty different.
  - nhchris 4y ago
    > Really does feel orwellian to change the authors being referenced. > This change I feel is one of the least objectionable, IMHO. I think it's one of the most objectionable changes. Removing authors whose politics have gone out of style, and replacing them with more palatable ones, reminds me of Party members airbrushed out of photos with Stalin. That it's done in a children's book is that much worse - a middle-man censor posing as Dahl and recommending what books to read, and presenting a false consensus on which authors were popular.
  - bentley 4y ago
prvc 4y ago
This is after they announced a separate release of non-bowdlerized versions. So extant purchasers who wish to have e-book versions of the original need to buy them a second time. Had they just released the modified versions as a separate edition this would have been unnecessary. In view of this timeline of events, increasing revenue seems to be the motive here, and the publishers seem to now be implicated in some kind of deceptive business practice such as bait and switch or worse.
- gorwell 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - than3 4y ago
    Its actually must worse, that's a very surface view. This is subversive political warfare. They are retroactively editing history, and no copyright grant should ever allow you to do that or to damage property that you have already legitimately paid for, especially without consent. Its a violent subversive attack on ideological aspects of people's culture, lives, and property rights. Honestly, they should have the copyright immediately revoked if they start pushing ideological or subversive edits into classic works. Make a clear statement that you only get these granted protections if you play by the cultures rules, and corruptive behavior will not be tolerated.
    - jonny_eh 4y ago
      Now do Star Wars Special Editions.
      - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
        I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a clever counter point because no one was happy with that either. But at least it was the creator themselves editing their own works. And Lucas didn’t reach into your DVD collection and stop you watching the originals. It was just a new edition.
bitL 4y ago
So here we are in the dystopia predicted 20 years ago. How are we going to trust historical records when they can be changed on the fly to support whatever is en vogue?
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The future is clear, it’s only the past which is uncertain.
- derwiki 4y ago
  Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
- yakireev 4y ago
  > How are we going to trust historical records when they can be changed on the fly to support whatever is en vogue? This is a good question, and more practical than it might look like: there have been instances of major media outlets being caught quietly editing their "early" covid reporting from spring 2020 later in the pandemic, to better match the changes in the narrative. I deeply regret not bookmarking some of the examples: this is now ungooglable, and not having a prooflink makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist.
- fidgewidge 4y ago
  We've been in that dystopia for some time now already. Take a look at the history of temperature records for one example that's much more serious than Roald Dahl. In the 60s there were newspaper articles, conference reports, pop sci magazine articles, at least one TV documentary and letters from scientists to the US President all about global cooling. It was in the news because temperatures had been falling for decades (since the end of ww2 approximately). Climatologists predicted the trend would continue. Several explanations were presented by scientists including the emission of particulate matter by power stations that dimmed the sun. Graphs of average temperatures over time showed a clear cooling trend. In the mid seventies this trend reversed and temperatures started going up. The new explanation became different emissions from power stations. By the end of the 80s climatologists were warning about global warming but they faced the issue of why it didn't happen between the 40s and mid 70s. By the turn of the millennium they'd started replacing historical data with recalculated values that reduced the extent of the mid century cooling, and once they crossed that Rubicon new versions of old data started being released regularly. There was always a new reason being found why people couldn't accurately read thermometers back in the day. New historical data smoothly and silently replaced old data on government websites. By the 2010s global cooling had vanished from the record entirely and temperature graphs showed a flat trend during that era. Of course censorship isn't complete without denial it ever happened. Hence if you look for global cooling today, our glorious tech firm overlords will direct you to denials it ever existed at all. You have to know where to look to see the old newspaper clippings, the videos of Leonard Nimoy telling his viewers about the coming ice age, screenshots of old graphs, scans of the letter to the president etc. And finally, because erasing all the old copies of documents is so hard, no historical editing regime can survive without training the population not to look. The above information is verboten in polite society, the media won't touch it along with many other things. All respectable people know never to question The Science lest they be immediately fired from their job or worse. There are people in this thread gamely saying they will just read pirate versions of these books to their kids, but that's not how it works. Give it ten years and reading the old editions of Dahl will be considered a firing offense and your kids will be trained by their teachers to disown you, if they catch you with such copies. Because that's already happened for issues the leftists care about more.
sander27home 4y ago
I am not surprise there will be concerted movement to pirate these woke original non-censored books to hit the publishers pocket very hard. Used to see parents in my area strongly encourage buying books even if e-version. Now they actively recommend pirated way....down to which sites and how to best display with best format. They are the tech boom generations and they even actively teaching older boomers to do so. Publishers have no idea what hits them for going woke.
can16358p 4y ago
There should be a law preventing any publisher from censoring or revoking access to the people who have already access to some content. (Other than extreme cases that put people in physical danger) If you can read it today, you can (should be) read it 50 years from now, the exact same unaltered book. If someone can access a version of the content, they should always be able to. Revoking access to future versions with updates? Fine, that's fair. But revoking access retroactively? Nope. This should be illegal by the law, otherwise licensors will keep doing this out of control.
- arp242 4y ago
  I think this goes too far. It would mean, for example, that subscribing to Netflix means I will always have access to all films and TV series currently available. That strikes me as unreasonable: it's pretty clear to everyone that the deal is you pay a certain amount of month to be able to temporarily access the films and series they offer at any particular time. It's really a matter of communication; what do you actually get when you pay $X for something? Right now this is too often unclear, hidden in the ToS or some such. If you want to sell access to Roald Dahl's books for only a week then I don't see anything wrong with that: as long as it's communicated clearly up-front, so I know what exactly I'm getting and can make an informed purchase decision. This is kind of how libraries work, right? It's not a problem because the deal is clear to customers up front. So in short, I'd be in favour of laws that mandate clearer communication of the conditions, rather than laws that forces anyone to adopt a particular way of selling stuff or access to stuff.
  - Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
    I don't think subscribing to a library service is the same as buying a digital copy of an item. Someone subscribing to Kindle Plus (or whatever) might not expect to have a permanent copy of each book, but someone who pays for a digital copy definitely does.
    - arp242 4y ago
      Sure, but that's because the terms aren't communicated up-front clearly.
golem14 4y ago
I have a technical question. If the original version copyright expires, will the updated versions have a new copyright, starting now? Will the updated version have the original copyright that will expire at the original date?
- kelnos 4y ago
  I think it would depend on whether or not the new and changed content qualifies as copyrightable on its own. A lawyer could probably advise someone whether or not that's the case here, but ultimately it'd be up to a court to decide, if anyone wanted to force the issue. I do seem to recall noting that books that get updated with new editions often do sport a new copyright date. Not sure if the changes made here would qualify, though.
mynameishere 4y ago
The edits are so dumb my conspiracy theorist brain wonders if they are doing this to pump sales. They are certainly getting headlines. Headlines mean money! I sometimes look at left-leaning websites (other than HN) to get a broader view of the world, and the support for the bowdlerization of Dahl seems near 100 percent among our more righteous, liberal, blue-stockinged thinkers. Example: https://www.metafilter.com/198336/Dont-gobblefunk-around-with-words https://www.metafilter.com/198336/Dont-gobblefunk-around-wit...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  I hate myself for knowing this, but there is such a thing as resistance marketing. In a sense, it is a way to get automatic contrarians, because some will go to support whatever is forbidden or has the appearance of being so. I would not be that surprised if what you said was an actual marketing campaign depending on fake controversy.
- exodust 4y ago
  The metafilter comments seem to blanket-approve edits. No room left to discuss the edits themselves. Consider the Magic Faraway Tree edits. The children no longer go on adventures without adult supervision. Never mind that venturing out and exploring is a fundamental curiosity for children - it's inherently risky and potentially dangerous, and that's the point. Other edits include new characters and lands introduced. Lessons on gender quality in response to someone asking for help with chores. It's creative contamination. Heavy-handed tonal modification of the story, disrespects the author efforts to create a specific atmosphere and world, and have that maintained for the life of the art work. Along comes Netflix or whoever the estate owner is, and sets the 'Sensitivity Enforcement Team on the task. Words and ideas go flying in a bizarre censorship frenzy.
philonoist 4y ago
Why don't you release two versions, one of which is 'clean version' like David Goggins does.
- TchoBeer 4y ago
  This is the obvious way to do what they did without drawing this much ire. Release a "Roald Dahl 2023 collection" which is explicitly marketed as a modernization. It would still get people fuming because culture war bullshit, but it would pass so much quicker.
jasonlotito 4y ago
ITT: People upset that people did something they said they were going to do. People are also upset that the company had consent to do the thing they said they were going to do. Also, apparently getting consent to do something, and than doing it, is a "violent" attack.
neonate 4y ago
https://archive.fo/OSLQN https://archive.fo/OSLQN
dang 4y ago
Recent and related: Roald Dahl: Original books to be kept in print following criticism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925396 - Feb 2023 (301 comments) The rewriting of Roald Dahl is an act of cultural vandalism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34872760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34872760 - Feb 2023 (140 comments) Roald Dahl: Rishi Sunak joins criticism of changes to author's books - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34869868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34869868 - Feb 2023 (66 comments) Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34849383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34849383 - Feb 2023 (904 comments) Roald Dahl books rewritten to remove language deemed offensive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34845933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34845933 - Feb 2023 (12 comments)
briandear 4y ago
The problem is that we even give oxygen to these so-called “sensitivity readers.” But there are plenty of Diversity and Inclusion consultants that are actually taken seriously when they should be laughed out of the room.
pdntspa 4y ago
Jesus people, stop buying from this DRM-ed cloud crap. The only acceptable formats for ebooks are LOCALLY INSTALLED PDF and epub. Steal them if you have to!
- whoooooo123 4y ago
  Or just buy real books. I ditched my Kindle years ago and have never looked back. Nothing beats a hardback.
  - bentley 4y ago
    I’ve always loved physical books, and the serendipitous discoverability of volumes on a shelf can’t be beat. That said, ebooks provide worthwhile benefits in their own right. Fulltext search, text‐to‐speech, changing fonts and font sizes, small physical size convenient for travel… other times I come up with some operation I want to perform on a particular book, like counting how often a particular phrase is used, or comparing certain passages side by side, where having an ebook copy would be useful. So for these reasons, I often buy the ebook edition of my hardcopy books, if I can find it DRM‐free. Similarly, after reading a good ebook I’ll often get a physical copy to stash on my shelf. (In any case, though, DRM‐encumbered ebooks are off the table, at least for me!) Makes me wish for a well‐made book scanner and OCR package, so I can format shift all those physical books I can’t find acceptable ebooks of.
    - vixen99 4y ago
      For me it's the absence of an affordable automated page turner that makes this conversion difficult. I have an Auramate from Czur (https://www.czur.com/ https://www.czur.com/) which does a pretty good job of the scanning and OCR (about 2 sec per page or double page) and corrects for curvature at the spine. However I have zero experience with other equivalent machines which are undoubtedly available.
  - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
    If I bought physical books of everything I read I would run out of space in my apartment. I already have so many books, so I started only buying physical books if I felt like they contain a lot of pictures or are pleasing physical objects. For general reading kindle books being available on demand without going to a bookshop or waiting on postage, that my partner can read the same book at the same time, and it being lightweight for commuting are all also nice perks but the space saving is the key element for me
Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
Completely unacceptable. This is on top of them releasing "new" editions that do not feature the censorship changes, which they will gladly sell to you for full price. If you pay retail price again, we'll let you have the book you already purchased. Utterly unacceptable.
bootlooped 4y ago
Am I naive for wondering why Amazon would allow this? What's in it for them? It hurts the customer, it hurts their brand, it breaks the illusion that you own the book, it breaks trust in buying books on Kindle. If I were above the Kindle division on the org chart I would be furious.
- anonymousiam 4y ago
  Jeff Bezos, Amazon's majority shareholder and owner of The Washington Post is strongly aligned with with the culture behind this revisionism. We are living in Orwell's imagined future dystopia where history is fluid.
- alexilliamson 4y ago
  Money? No press is bad press
- op00to 4y ago
  It’s not his book. He doesn’t get to say what is done with it.
whoooooo123 4y ago
"They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove them" - Rage Against the Machine
mobutu 4y ago
This woke shit is going too far.
josephcsible 4y ago
If you get caught willfully "stealing" from a copyright holder, don't you have to pay up to $250,000 per offense? I wish it worked in the other direction too, so that Penguin Random House would have to pay $250,000 per copy of eBook that it did this too.
zzo38computer 4y ago
I think that they shouldn't remotely update ebooks, regardless of their content. (For this and other reasons, I don't really like ebooks, and I like to have a printed copy.) (It can make sense to publish errata if there are mistakes (e.g. a word is missing or misspelled, or a number is wrong), but even then you should not automatically remotely update them, and they should keep track of the changes. A public version control system would help in this case.) I think that the original versions should be preserved, but that they can make modified versions too if they want to do; however, the modified versions should not be called Roald Dahl's original versions, and should not be claimed to be them; they should be something else. (Fortunately, this seems to be what they are doing, in this case, so that is good, but it does not justify remotely updating the ebooks.) (Copyright often makes both such things difficult though if you do not hold the copyright, but copyright is bad and should be abolished, and then you can both preserve original versions and make modified versions.)
trilbyglens 4y ago
The main take away here is that if you don't own the files you don't own the product. Don't buy ebooks if you can't get your hands on actual files.
- op00to 4y ago
  Or do buy ebooks for stuff that you’re ok losing and the convenience is worth the extra cost over a cheap paperback copy. Buy physical books for stuff that you care about changing. I have no problem buying ebooks, because I know the deal.
LanceH 4y ago
What becomes of the authorship of such a work? They're printing his name on it like he's the author, but they've gone way beyond mere editing. Wouldn't putting his name on it alone be some kind of misrepresentation. I know it works like that with ghost writers, but those are ostensibly approved by the author. There is no such thing here.
- zzo38computer 4y ago
  I agree. I know that for my own works, I don't care if someone wants to remove attribution, but if someone modifies it, then I do not want them to keep the attribution to me unless they also include a notice about the modification (but no such notice is needed if the attribution is also removed). (However, I am unaware of any licenses that work like this, as far as I know.)
- TchoBeer 4y ago
  My parents' house has a series of Shakespeare which has the bard's works in modern English. It still says "Shakespeare" across the cover because it is, primarily, the works of Shakespeare. Does a great deal of interpretation not go into these works? Is it therefore dishonest to sell them as Shakespeare?
  - oska 4y ago
    Shakespeare predates the modern concept (and cult) of the author. This means that you are comparing two entities that are different in important ways (an Elizabethan playwright and a 20th Century author).
    - LanceH 4y ago
      Shakespeare feels more like it's due to language drift and the changes are necessary to make it accessible. The Roald Dahl fiasco feels more like editors out of 1984 making edits to control thoughts. Or, without reading conspiracy into it, it feels like some current "writers" using someone else's name to push their views on how things should be. Whatever is going on they seem to be changing the story itself. I don't think language drift can be blamed, because it is an active, intentional act to change our language. Or maybe it's just a bubble wrap the children issue. This is why we each choose a book to memorize, just in case.
imchillyb 4y ago
Once censorship becomes permissive, it becomes pervasive. Once censorship becomes pervasive, it becomes overwhelming. Once censorship becomes overwhelming, we lose our sense of truth. Don't allow censorship.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
I thought the Orwellian changing of the text was repulsive enough, but this is truly bad. They could have simply sold the new, sanitized versions going forward instead of vandalizing the property of paying customers. This is one of many reasons I physically purchase all my books no matter how much room they take up.
verisimi 4y ago
Yes, I've just checked my old paper copies and these too have been updated!! /s But seriously, this is the major risk with 'everything online' our just electronic media is general. It really is possible to change history at the press of a button. Cut and paste history. And how would anyone even know this has happened? No one is paying attention. If someone did spot some history editing, why would that get any traction? Who alert the world to it? And with ai to generate reams of bullcrap... my my, most people are going to be in trouble! A connection to truth will become hard to find. There is an answer - and that is to recognise what you know (in a strong sense) from what you believe on account of something you were told or saw on a screen. You only know what you have personally - the rest is hypothetical.
anticodon 4y ago
What they were always saying about "communist" and/or "authoritarian" regimes, e.g. in «1984», they were actually saying about themselves. It's becoming obvious more and more every day.
t0bia_s 4y ago
This is one of many reasons why buying e-stuffs with DRM is no option for me.
derstander 4y ago
The article says: > Owners of Roald Dahl ebooks ... > Readers who bought electronic versions ... It has been proven to us (members of the general populace) time and again that we're not actually "buying" and we don't "own" digital media: whether ebooks, digital movies, music, or games. We are licensing or renting them. And apparently the terms of the license often include altering the contents or removing access (e.g. the Kindle 1984 fiasco) at the whim of the licensor. To be honest, I'm not really sure if the license explicitly allows that or not -- I'm not reading multi-page terms and conditions every time I make a digital purchase, even though I know I should -- but it has certainly happened on multiple occasions. It's odd to me that we've accepted this for digital purchases. Can you imagine checking out at a grocery store and being presented with a hundred page amalgamation of terms of use for every item you're buying? I know government regulation is a non-starter for many, but I personally would not mind if the government established some sort of digital version of the first sale doctrine and stopped businesses from using terms like "buy", "purchase", or "own" for practices that did not meet those criteria. Sure, let Amazon license you ebooks that can be edited or revoked at the whim of Amazon or the publisher, but let's "call a fig a fig and a trough a trough".
- PointyFluff 4y ago
  [dead]
- WeylandYutani 4y ago
  Pirates win again.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    An ethical pirate buys an official copy to support the creators, but uses a ripped copy because it's not only convenient but permanent.
    - account42 4y ago
      Is it really ethical to reward abusive business practices?
barrysteve 4y ago
Some have said now is the best time to create books, and films because there is no gatekeepers. The gatekeepers are here, they moved to post-publishing.
ecef9-8c0f-4374 4y ago
What are the rules in the US about, sharing books that are no longer in sale? In the back of my mind I remember you can legal share things no body is selling anymore. Maybe I misremember.
- bentley 4y ago
  You misremember. Barring legal exceptions like fair use and secondhand sales, the copyright holder has exclusive control over reproduction of a work for the full duration of the copyright term. That doesn’t change if the work becomes commercially unavailable.
berniedurfee 4y ago
Yikes. I’m all for people being held accountable for their words and actions, but this is not that. If an author wants to release a new edition of a book because they themselves have evolved in their thinking, great. If an author wants to stop publication of the original work, fine. But a publisher revising a work on behalf of an author is not fine. It’s legal, they own the rights, but it’s not okay. Hopefully this changes the dynamics of rights agreements for works of art and creators can bar opt rights holders for unilaterally revising a creative work. This seems more like a legal issue rather than a culture issue.
WeylandYutani 4y ago
Sensitivity readers. Another shit thing from America.
rnernento 4y ago
Can we leverage blockchain to fight back against this kind of stuff?

420 points by nhchris 4y ago

ftxbro 4y ago

Something about this makes me wonder how Richard Stallman is doing these days.

Gigachad 4y ago
Obviously this is just a coincidence but it is amusing that he has been pretty much removed from public view right around the time most of the stuff he warned about finally came true. He has been ranting on about ebooks since they were invented. But it took over a decade for the “technically they could do this” to become “they are doing this”
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  >Obviously this is just a coincidence Are you sure about that? Given the concerted smear campaign against him?
  - snerbles 4y ago
    Pretty sure parent comment was being sarcastic.
  - op00to 4y ago
    Stating Epstein rape victim was 'Entirely Willing' is horrible and disgusting. Calling it a ‘smear campaign’ is dishonest.
    - RobotToaster 4y ago
      It would be, if he ever said that, but it's a lie. What he said was "the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates." He has also stated that Epstein should be considered a serial rapist.
      - cauch 4y ago
        That sounds like Boris Johnson's defense (about the partygate) "yes, the investigation shown that people were hugging and partying right in front of my eyes, but you have no proof that my brain recorded these information, so you have no proof I've lied when I've said I did not notice". Presenting herself as entirely willing does not mean that suddenly the person who is "consuming" is not participating to a sexual assault when this person is conveniently closing a blind eye on either or not she has been coerced: Epstein already had a bad reputation and was a registered sex offended at the time, including for coercing minor to have sex. It is just bs to play coy and say "weeeell, maybe he did not know", and just show the person saying that is going out of their way in semantic to reshape the discourse into victim blaming.
- jay_kyburz 4y ago
  My ebooks are doing just fine on my hard disk DRM free. Don't blame the technology. My next reader will be a Kobo, but my Kindle that is not connected to the internet is still going strong.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Stallman was always in support of drm free ebooks. The problem is that virtually all consumers are using drm restricted books.
    - op00to 4y ago
      Huh. It’s almost as if consumers just don’t care as much as nerds do.
      - oska 4y ago
        They don't have the foresight to care early on. They certainly do care when what has been warned about starts getting implemented.
geodel 4y ago
Not much better I'd guess. Last time he was news when woke crowd was really after his blood.
- flangola7 4y ago
  I still have yet to hear a coherent and succinct definition of "woke."
  - stkdump 4y ago
    It's a smear word for 'people that care about people'
    - peanutcrisis 4y ago
      From the perspective of someone left-leaning, it’s an illiberal faction of the left that has very specific beliefs about race, gender, and sexuality that not everyone agrees on, and an extreme but unsubstantiated set of explanations for them and how to resolve them. They’re very good at baiting and switching too, using language that we agree to be good and can get behind, but don’t mean what we think it means. Because of this sophistry, it’s easy for them to denounce their opponents as morally bad people for rejecting their views, when their views weren’t the good things we thought it meant in the first place. This moving of goal posts is precisely what you’re doing right now. Someone who explains the same thing better than I do: https://helenpluckrose.substack.com/p/defining-woke-and-wokeness https://helenpluckrose.substack.com/p/defining-woke-and-woke...
      - stkdump 4y ago
        Oh, I am sorry. You are right. It's not intended as a smear word at all. Thanks for your explanation.
        account42 4y ago
        Oh, it is absolutely a derogatory term - it's just that the people it is applied to are really not 'people that care about people'.
krapp 4y ago
Hacker News hasn't burned down recently so I assume he's doing fine.
op00to 4y ago
Still eating toe jam and believing raping children is ok.

nhchris 4y ago

Unpaywalled: https://archive.fo/OSLQN https://archive.fo/OSLQN Excerpt: Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed.

baremetal 4y ago

Obligatory Orwell quote: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

andsoitis 4y ago
Does this apply to the case where the owner (rather than the state), makes slight edits (this case)? I mean, it is not like the books have been rewritten or history erased, has it?
- nhchris 4y ago
  Absent from your question is the author [1]. The owners may have the legal right to edit and distribute the text, but by passing it off as Roald Dahl's words, they are perpetrating fraud against their readers. And even if it were the author doing it, it would be dishonest to have multiple versions under the same title, unless there was a note at least briefly mentioning alterations. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017707 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017707
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Penguin, the publisher, has decided to also publish the classic versions: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/penguin-publish-classic-roald-dahl-books-after-backlash-97441402 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/penguin-publish-cl...
    - pseudo0 4y ago
      So they are removing the original copies from e-readers and then forcing people to buy it again? What a grift.
    - justsomehnguy 4y ago

A_D_E_P_T 4y ago

Time to back up your ebook libraries. Step one: Download Calibre - https://calibre-ebook.com https://calibre-ebook.com Step two: Install Alf's DRM removal tools for Kindle bought ebooks https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com

gorwell 4y ago
Or buy the physical version. Buy it now for anything you want to be able to read in its original form.
- FredPret 4y ago
  Beware print on demand books, those might be the new woke versions
smcin 4y ago
You don't get any trouble from Amazon for using Alf?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- smeej 4y ago
  Don't put the Alfred version back on your Kindle. That one stays local on your hard drive.
- criddell 4y ago
  For years they didn’t seem to care that the DRM was broken. These days though, they’ve stepped up and the latest version hasn’t been broken yet. There are some less than idea workarounds (like getting books in older versions with crappier typography). I periodically check in on the DeDRM tools hoping that KFX has been totally broken, but that hasn’t happened yet.
sphars 4y ago
Alf no longer updates his repo[0], best to switch to noDRM's fork[1] [0]: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools [1]: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

Syntonicles 4y ago

When I first read this, I was furious with the publisher. While I'm still disgusted by the behavior I am under the impression that the Dahl estate supports the historical revisions. So what response should the company receive? Boycott? Hacktivism? Flagrant piracy? Perhaps not. Should we lobby to limit the rights of an estate edit posthumously? Should a blurb indicating the edit be required on the cover of the book? Instead, I think a more grassroots effort is desperately needed. We need something akin to a software license that an individual author can include in their contracts with publishers and in their estate planning. It should be entirely frictionless and unambiguous. It should be the easiest path for an author to take. I propose that a small foundation be created for the purpose of its creation and dissemination; and that a public website / petition exist so that any author publishing today can see that the idea is endorsed by the very people who inspired them to become writers.

breck 4y ago
We need to abolish (c)opywrong law: https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h...
JPKab 4y ago
The Dahl estate doesn't own the rights to his books anymore.
paxys 4y ago
Here's the solution – forget about all this and download the real version of the book from the internet.
- Syntonicles 4y ago
  For me, maybe. For millions of unsuspecting 8-year old children getting their version from the school library?
  - koolba 4y ago
    Teaching kids how to pirate books off lib genesis would be both cost effective and high impact.

hodgesrm 4y ago

> Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed. I like HN because we make an effort to elevate the conversation, ask interesting questions, and gain insights from each other. But in this case, these people are just assholes.

kspacewalk2 4y ago
Many decades from now, this comment of yours will be edited by your estate to remove linguistic violence.
ajot 4y ago
Fine, I'll bait. How are they assholes? If I buy a book[0], I expect to be able to read it as such, and not read a re-edition of it. [0] Although I understand that in most ebook stores, you're buying a license to the book, and not the book itself. This may be true and legally sound, but as an end consumer it still bothers me.
- kelnos 4y ago
  I think the person you're replying to was saying that the book publishers were assholes for changing the books and automatically updating existing customer copies. Not that the article author is an asshole for being upset about this practice. (I agree that the wording of their comment is somewhat ambiguous.)
  - hodgesrm 4y ago
    Your interpretation correct. It made me really mad, and I didn't write clearly. My comment was definitely below average for HN.

smcin 4y ago

Insert obligatory mention of: Amazon removes some editions of Orwell's 1984 from Kindle Devices after issue with owner of book rights (2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8930904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8930904 NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...

smsm42 4y ago
At least they could explain this one away with "it's just a copyright issue, we're not censoring anything". Here it's plain and open censorship, initiated by the publisher.
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4y ago
  Aren't both versions freely available? Seems strange to call something censorship when nothing has been censored.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    Replacing one copy with another in your own device is a fairly intrusive act. We don't have a word for it yet, given that classical censorship developed in the era of printed books, when such activities were technologically impossible. But I would say that it falls under penumbra of censorship because of the intent. And the intent is to remove certain speech from average reader's view without the reader's consent. Censorship does not have to be total in order to be censorship. Even in authoritarian states, small oppositional media outlets may be tolerated, so that foreign accusations of media control can be rebuked: "Hey, look at Radio X, we are definitely not censoring them." But their reach is carefully kept limited.
    - justinclift 4y ago
      > We don't have a word for it yet "Computer Fraud and Abuse" seems like it would cover it? :) Here in Australia, maybe "Unauthorised access with intent" too. Would need real lawyers/court to figure it out though.

Vanit 4y ago

Time for everyone to overreact and let the culture war theatrics disguise politicians' dismal care for the systems they're actually supposed to be running. If you're finding yourself enraged over this, you need to question your priorities and if the people driving this content have your interests at heart. Spoilers; they don't.

Gigachad 4y ago
Not enraged. More a feeling of “huh, maybe those free software extremists might have had a point after all.” Stallman has been warning us about the theoretical risks of ebooks for a long time. But it’s taken so long to actually see the possibilities become realities.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  > Stallman has been warning us Do you mean that Richard Mathew Lotfman that created the concept of closed source while working for Microsoft at MIT?
dqpb 4y ago
[dead]

quadrifoliate 4y ago

The article is paywalled, can anyone confirm that this is actually remote updates? If so, what's the text that shows that? The only part I can read is the sub-heading, which says "Puffin announces plans to publish a classic collection as it emerges online libraries are being automatically updated with sensitivity changes." This is not the same as remotely updating a version that you have on your Kindle. Rather, it would be like a library receiving an updated version of the book, which you then check out -- which could totally happen in the physical world as well.

nhchris 4y ago
Unpaywalled: https://archive.fo/OSLQN https://archive.fo/OSLQN Key paragraphs: Owners of Roald Dahl ebooks are having their libraries automatically updated with the new censored versions containing hundreds of changes to language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race. Readers who bought electronic versions of the writer’s books, such as Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, before the controversial updates have discovered their copies have now been changed. [..] Clarissa Aykroyd, 43, who works in children’s publishing, reported on social media that ebooks she bought before 2020 had been changed. She told The Times: “It feels Orwellian that we are having the updated versions forced upon us and has made me weary of ebooks. “I assumed that because the changes to the work were so big that I would be given the option of whether to download it.”
boomboomsubban 4y ago
From the sound of it, someone had bought the book, didn't have it downloaded anymore, downloaded it and it was the old version. They then deleted it and downloaded it again and it was the new version. So not really remotely updated. https://twitter.com/stoneandthestar/status/1628770379782139904?cxt=HHwWgMC9ufyBx5otAAAA https://twitter.com/stoneandthestar/status/16287703797821399... This also all happened before the decision was announced to publish both the original and the new versions, so it may have already changed again.
kelnos 4y ago
> can anyone confirm that this is actually remote updates? No need to read an article for that; if you dig through the settings on a Kindle, there's an option to allow automatic book updates (probably enabled by default). The updates happen automatically, in the background, when the device syncs, without confirmation or presenting a list of changes.

k_sze 4y ago

1. Shouldn’t it be possible to argue that consumers specifically bought a particular revision of a book and don’t want any new revision? 2. Better yet, shouldn’t we just have a system where consumers have access to all revisions of a book? We’re talking about digital records, not physical books that need to be printed and shipped, after all.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
When you buy an ebook, what are you actually buying?
- can16358p 4y ago
  Nothing. Or perhaps "buying the ability to access the book, where the provider can alter/censor/revoke any time without prior notice" if we really want to use the word "buy".
- smsm42 4y ago
  A privilege to temporarily view the content on devices that the seller approves, as long as they approve. This privilege can be revoked at any time, including for reasons having nothing to do with you (such as the seller having a fight with the copyright holder), and the content can be modified or removed at any moment. And you pay for that more than for the paper copy, because it sucks to be a sucker.
nhchris 4y ago
> a system where consumers have access to all revisions of a book A key component of censorship or falsification is hiding the fact that it even takes place. They are tools of deception, and if you tell people exactly how you are deceiving them, it is no longer effective.
- teolandon 4y ago
  Well they're doing a bad job at that then, since everyone knows that this is happening.

hilbert42 4y ago

A class action lawsuit against the publisher ought to fix it. Failing that then deliberate mass piracy of the original works will. These bastards need to be taught a lesson.

bawolff 4y ago
On what basis? You can't just sue people because you dont like something they did. It has to actually be illegal.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  If I buy or license something in good faith and the seller or licensee changes it after the contract is set or done is not the way business is normally conducted. It's a breach of contract. Here, the publisher has altered the contract without my permission or knowledge. I no longer have what I paid for. As far as I'm concerned the publisher has not only deceived me but also has committed fraud. _ Edit: here's an analogy: I license Windows in perpetuity on my computer (which is the usual arrangement), and unbeknownst to me Microsoft has placed a timer within the code to disable the O/S after say 18 months then all hell would break loose. This is effectively what the publisher has done here (the contractual mechanism is the same).
  - bawolff 4y ago
    IANAL, but i feel this argument would fail since the change wasn't really material. If they cut half the book that would be one thing, but a paragraph changed is a pretty different matter (in the windows example - a kill switch would be obviously bad, some random changes in the interface after an update would be business as usual). Plus there is probably some shrink wrap agreement with the kindle saying that amazon could do this (which if true) would make it hard to argue you were decieved.
    - kragen 4y ago
      in this case the change was so material that it has made national news in dozens of articles and both the prime minister and the queen have criticized it

sitzkrieg 4y ago

Richard Stallman's far fetched sounding examples become more and more true with each day

RobotToaster 4y ago
The modern day Cassandra
- flangola7 4y ago
  Who?
  - hidroto 4y ago
    cassandra is a woman from a greek myth that was cursed to make prophecies that would always be true but no one would believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      That wouldn't be much of a curse. If you get to make whatever future you want, who cares whether anyone believes you in advance? Cassandra was just able to see the future (and no one would believe her). Tangentially, I think it's interesting that Greek mythology takes such a clear stand on the nature of time travel: it's possible, but history (past, present, or future) can't be altered. That is one of a couple of rival models in modern science fiction, and generally not a particularly popular one.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
matheusmoreira 4y ago
True. Whatever disagreement people may have with his free software movement, it's undeniable that the man saw far into the future. His "Right to Read" story always hits hard: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html It's frightening to watch this cyberpunk hellscape unfold.

JPKab 4y ago

Fya: Thank Netflix for this. They own all rights to Dahl's books. https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights-to-roald-dahls-childrens-books-3393120 https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights... The Roald Dahl Story Company owns the rights, and authorized Penguins changes. They are owned by Netflix. So no, this isn't disinformation you censorious hall monitors. https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-roald-dahl-story-company https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-ro... https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/netflix-is-acquiring-the-rights-to-roald-dahls-books https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/netflix-is-acquiring-the-r...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
paxys 4y ago
Netflix has not taken over book publishing. Penguin retained those rights, and they are the ones making the changes.
- JPKab 4y ago
  Wrong! https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-roald-dahl-story-company https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-acquires-iconic-ro... RDSC had to approve the changes.
  - paxys 4y ago
    > RDSC had to approve the changes. Where in the link does it say that?
berkes 4y ago
You've pasted this numerous times in this thread. And been told just as often you are plain wrong. Why are you spreading this misinformation?
- JPKab 4y ago

rufus_foreman 4y ago

"I've warned my publishers that if they later on so much as change a single comma in one of my books, they will never see another word from me. Never! Ever! ... When I am gone, if that happens, then I’ll wish mighty Thor knocks very hard on their heads with his Mjolnir. Or I will send along the 'enormous crocodile' to gobble them up." -- Roald Dahl, 1982

kelnos 4y ago
I assume, though, that Dahl's estate later gave the publishers permission. So Thor should come visit the people administrating his estate.
jl6 4y ago
I think what he’s really asking for there is some Marvel crossover movies?

goosedragons 4y ago

This isn't that surprising. Kindle has a feature called "Automatic Book Update" and when a publisher releases a new version it will update your book automatically... Usually the changes are pretty minor, fixed typos, maybe a movie cover or a new introduction. You can turn it off although I don't think you can roll back versions?

pharrington 4y ago
If the UX for the updates is to ask for confirmation for each update, along with a decent summary changelog, that's fine. Am I wrong in assuming the UX is not this, but something much more automatic?
- goosedragons 4y ago
  It's automatic. Some titles it doesn't seem to work for and you have to update manually but for those that do there's no changelog or confirmation and the update happens when you sync.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Right, it's automatic. There's no confirmation, and no changelog. I have it enabled, but stuff like this makes me consider disabling it. I'd be fine if there was a way to limit the updates to typo and grammar fixes, and reject content changes, but of course Amazon isn't going to implement a feature like that without something like a government telling it to do so. (I do back up my ebooks right after purchasing, though, so at least I have "originals".)

throwoutway 4y ago

This kind of stuff would make a libertarian actually want some regulation. I've started buying more paperback books lately, despite preferring digital

kragen 4y ago
perhaps it would make a libertarian want to abolish copyright

underwater 4y ago

The whole idea of renting books rather then owning them is gross, and I deeply regret purchasing a Kindle. But I don't understand the hand wringing about the publisher changing newer editions of the book. All media either changes with the times to find a new audience, or faces obsolescence. My generation grew up watching Romeo + Juliet and 10 Things I Hate About You, rather than pouring over the original Shakespearean plays. The changes in Roald Dahl's books are limited to asides about characters or superfluous details that are archaic. We are not loosing a literary gem by dropping the cheap "Wong number" joke from the Great Glass Elevator. It's not like this is some new thing, either. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was edited after publishing by Roald Dahl himself, because having Oompa Loompas be enslaved pygmies from deepest darkest Africa is kinda shitty.

nhchris 4y ago
> My generation grew up watching Romeo + Juliet and 10 Things I Hate About You, rather than pouring over the original Shakespearean plays. But you were not deceived into thinking those were the originals.
bawolff 4y ago
> My generation grew up watching Romeo + Juliet and 10 Things I Hate About You, rather than pouring over the original Shakespearean plays. Umm, im pretty sure im the same generation and we were required to pour over those in school. If you mean the average person isn't reading Shakespeare for fun, i think you would have to go back many many generations. For that matter, he was probably never "read" for fun by the average person (his plays were of course watched by the average person once upon a time)
- fjeifisjf 4y ago
  [dead]
- sclarisse 4y ago
  You can pour over whatever you like on your own time, but if it’s for school, you have to pore over it, or you’ll be dinged for spelling errors.

bawolff 4y ago

> The censored edition of Matilda has removed a reference to Conrad as an author read by the protagonist and replaced him with Jane Austen. Wait what? That's a pretty bizarre thing to change. Really does feel orwellian to change the authors being referenced.

toast0 4y ago
This change I feel is one of the least objectionable, IMHO. The point of the paragraph seems to be that Mathilda read kind of stuffy old books, and fed her imagination with them. If the namedropped authors aren't well known by today's children, why not adjust them? It doesn't much change the tone and it's not really relevant to the plot. I do think there's something a bit off in selecting an American writer instead of a Brit though. That and replacing ladies and gentlemen specifically with folks removes some of the Britishness and offends me as an American. At the same time, these edits feel substantial and I don't think they should be pushed without consent of the purchaser. Otoh, I would love for ebooks to magically get mistakes fixed (and even more so, if I could report mistakes, so they could get fixed).
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I think the prior paragraph connoted "adventurous, swashbuckling globe-trotter—a page at a time" and the new one connotes "likes to read classics", as far as how they contribute to characterization. Pretty different.
- nhchris 4y ago
  > Really does feel orwellian to change the authors being referenced. > This change I feel is one of the least objectionable, IMHO. I think it's one of the most objectionable changes. Removing authors whose politics have gone out of style, and replacing them with more palatable ones, reminds me of Party members airbrushed out of photos with Stalin. That it's done in a children's book is that much worse - a middle-man censor posing as Dahl and recommending what books to read, and presenting a false consensus on which authors were popular.
- bentley 4y ago

prvc 4y ago

This is after they announced a separate release of non-bowdlerized versions. So extant purchasers who wish to have e-book versions of the original need to buy them a second time. Had they just released the modified versions as a separate edition this would have been unnecessary. In view of this timeline of events, increasing revenue seems to be the motive here, and the publishers seem to now be implicated in some kind of deceptive business practice such as bait and switch or worse.

gorwell 4y ago
[flagged]
- than3 4y ago
  Its actually must worse, that's a very surface view. This is subversive political warfare. They are retroactively editing history, and no copyright grant should ever allow you to do that or to damage property that you have already legitimately paid for, especially without consent. Its a violent subversive attack on ideological aspects of people's culture, lives, and property rights. Honestly, they should have the copyright immediately revoked if they start pushing ideological or subversive edits into classic works. Make a clear statement that you only get these granted protections if you play by the cultures rules, and corruptive behavior will not be tolerated.
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    Now do Star Wars Special Editions.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a clever counter point because no one was happy with that either. But at least it was the creator themselves editing their own works. And Lucas didn’t reach into your DVD collection and stop you watching the originals. It was just a new edition.

bitL 4y ago

So here we are in the dystopia predicted 20 years ago. How are we going to trust historical records when they can be changed on the fly to support whatever is en vogue?

Gigachad 4y ago
The future is clear, it’s only the past which is uncertain.
derwiki 4y ago
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
yakireev 4y ago
> How are we going to trust historical records when they can be changed on the fly to support whatever is en vogue? This is a good question, and more practical than it might look like: there have been instances of major media outlets being caught quietly editing their "early" covid reporting from spring 2020 later in the pandemic, to better match the changes in the narrative. I deeply regret not bookmarking some of the examples: this is now ungooglable, and not having a prooflink makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist.
fidgewidge 4y ago
We've been in that dystopia for some time now already. Take a look at the history of temperature records for one example that's much more serious than Roald Dahl. In the 60s there were newspaper articles, conference reports, pop sci magazine articles, at least one TV documentary and letters from scientists to the US President all about global cooling. It was in the news because temperatures had been falling for decades (since the end of ww2 approximately). Climatologists predicted the trend would continue. Several explanations were presented by scientists including the emission of particulate matter by power stations that dimmed the sun. Graphs of average temperatures over time showed a clear cooling trend. In the mid seventies this trend reversed and temperatures started going up. The new explanation became different emissions from power stations. By the end of the 80s climatologists were warning about global warming but they faced the issue of why it didn't happen between the 40s and mid 70s. By the turn of the millennium they'd started replacing historical data with recalculated values that reduced the extent of the mid century cooling, and once they crossed that Rubicon new versions of old data started being released regularly. There was always a new reason being found why people couldn't accurately read thermometers back in the day. New historical data smoothly and silently replaced old data on government websites. By the 2010s global cooling had vanished from the record entirely and temperature graphs showed a flat trend during that era. Of course censorship isn't complete without denial it ever happened. Hence if you look for global cooling today, our glorious tech firm overlords will direct you to denials it ever existed at all. You have to know where to look to see the old newspaper clippings, the videos of Leonard Nimoy telling his viewers about the coming ice age, screenshots of old graphs, scans of the letter to the president etc. And finally, because erasing all the old copies of documents is so hard, no historical editing regime can survive without training the population not to look. The above information is verboten in polite society, the media won't touch it along with many other things. All respectable people know never to question The Science lest they be immediately fired from their job or worse. There are people in this thread gamely saying they will just read pirate versions of these books to their kids, but that's not how it works. Give it ten years and reading the old editions of Dahl will be considered a firing offense and your kids will be trained by their teachers to disown you, if they catch you with such copies. Because that's already happened for issues the leftists care about more.

sander27home 4y ago

I am not surprise there will be concerted movement to pirate these woke original non-censored books to hit the publishers pocket very hard. Used to see parents in my area strongly encourage buying books even if e-version. Now they actively recommend pirated way....down to which sites and how to best display with best format. They are the tech boom generations and they even actively teaching older boomers to do so. Publishers have no idea what hits them for going woke.

can16358p 4y ago

There should be a law preventing any publisher from censoring or revoking access to the people who have already access to some content. (Other than extreme cases that put people in physical danger) If you can read it today, you can (should be) read it 50 years from now, the exact same unaltered book. If someone can access a version of the content, they should always be able to. Revoking access to future versions with updates? Fine, that's fair. But revoking access retroactively? Nope. This should be illegal by the law, otherwise licensors will keep doing this out of control.

arp242 4y ago
I think this goes too far. It would mean, for example, that subscribing to Netflix means I will always have access to all films and TV series currently available. That strikes me as unreasonable: it's pretty clear to everyone that the deal is you pay a certain amount of month to be able to temporarily access the films and series they offer at any particular time. It's really a matter of communication; what do you actually get when you pay $X for something? Right now this is too often unclear, hidden in the ToS or some such. If you want to sell access to Roald Dahl's books for only a week then I don't see anything wrong with that: as long as it's communicated clearly up-front, so I know what exactly I'm getting and can make an informed purchase decision. This is kind of how libraries work, right? It's not a problem because the deal is clear to customers up front. So in short, I'd be in favour of laws that mandate clearer communication of the conditions, rather than laws that forces anyone to adopt a particular way of selling stuff or access to stuff.
- Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
  I don't think subscribing to a library service is the same as buying a digital copy of an item. Someone subscribing to Kindle Plus (or whatever) might not expect to have a permanent copy of each book, but someone who pays for a digital copy definitely does.
  - arp242 4y ago
    Sure, but that's because the terms aren't communicated up-front clearly.

golem14 4y ago

I have a technical question. If the original version copyright expires, will the updated versions have a new copyright, starting now? Will the updated version have the original copyright that will expire at the original date?

kelnos 4y ago
I think it would depend on whether or not the new and changed content qualifies as copyrightable on its own. A lawyer could probably advise someone whether or not that's the case here, but ultimately it'd be up to a court to decide, if anyone wanted to force the issue. I do seem to recall noting that books that get updated with new editions often do sport a new copyright date. Not sure if the changes made here would qualify, though.

mynameishere 4y ago

The edits are so dumb my conspiracy theorist brain wonders if they are doing this to pump sales. They are certainly getting headlines. Headlines mean money! I sometimes look at left-leaning websites (other than HN) to get a broader view of the world, and the support for the bowdlerization of Dahl seems near 100 percent among our more righteous, liberal, blue-stockinged thinkers. Example: https://www.metafilter.com/198336/Dont-gobblefunk-around-with-words https://www.metafilter.com/198336/Dont-gobblefunk-around-wit...

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
I hate myself for knowing this, but there is such a thing as resistance marketing. In a sense, it is a way to get automatic contrarians, because some will go to support whatever is forbidden or has the appearance of being so. I would not be that surprised if what you said was an actual marketing campaign depending on fake controversy.
exodust 4y ago
The metafilter comments seem to blanket-approve edits. No room left to discuss the edits themselves. Consider the Magic Faraway Tree edits. The children no longer go on adventures without adult supervision. Never mind that venturing out and exploring is a fundamental curiosity for children - it's inherently risky and potentially dangerous, and that's the point. Other edits include new characters and lands introduced. Lessons on gender quality in response to someone asking for help with chores. It's creative contamination. Heavy-handed tonal modification of the story, disrespects the author efforts to create a specific atmosphere and world, and have that maintained for the life of the art work. Along comes Netflix or whoever the estate owner is, and sets the 'Sensitivity Enforcement Team on the task. Words and ideas go flying in a bizarre censorship frenzy.

philonoist 4y ago

Why don't you release two versions, one of which is 'clean version' like David Goggins does.

TchoBeer 4y ago
This is the obvious way to do what they did without drawing this much ire. Release a "Roald Dahl 2023 collection" which is explicitly marketed as a modernization. It would still get people fuming because culture war bullshit, but it would pass so much quicker.

jasonlotito 4y ago

ITT: People upset that people did something they said they were going to do. People are also upset that the company had consent to do the thing they said they were going to do. Also, apparently getting consent to do something, and than doing it, is a "violent" attack.

neonate 4y ago

https://archive.fo/OSLQN https://archive.fo/OSLQN

dang 4y ago

Recent and related: Roald Dahl: Original books to be kept in print following criticism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34925396 - Feb 2023 (301 comments) The rewriting of Roald Dahl is an act of cultural vandalism - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34872760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34872760 - Feb 2023 (140 comments) Roald Dahl: Rishi Sunak joins criticism of changes to author's books - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34869868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34869868 - Feb 2023 (66 comments) Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34849383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34849383 - Feb 2023 (904 comments) Roald Dahl books rewritten to remove language deemed offensive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34845933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34845933 - Feb 2023 (12 comments)

briandear 4y ago

The problem is that we even give oxygen to these so-called “sensitivity readers.” But there are plenty of Diversity and Inclusion consultants that are actually taken seriously when they should be laughed out of the room.

pdntspa 4y ago

Jesus people, stop buying from this DRM-ed cloud crap. The only acceptable formats for ebooks are LOCALLY INSTALLED PDF and epub. Steal them if you have to!

whoooooo123 4y ago
Or just buy real books. I ditched my Kindle years ago and have never looked back. Nothing beats a hardback.
- bentley 4y ago
  I’ve always loved physical books, and the serendipitous discoverability of volumes on a shelf can’t be beat. That said, ebooks provide worthwhile benefits in their own right. Fulltext search, text‐to‐speech, changing fonts and font sizes, small physical size convenient for travel… other times I come up with some operation I want to perform on a particular book, like counting how often a particular phrase is used, or comparing certain passages side by side, where having an ebook copy would be useful. So for these reasons, I often buy the ebook edition of my hardcopy books, if I can find it DRM‐free. Similarly, after reading a good ebook I’ll often get a physical copy to stash on my shelf. (In any case, though, DRM‐encumbered ebooks are off the table, at least for me!) Makes me wish for a well‐made book scanner and OCR package, so I can format shift all those physical books I can’t find acceptable ebooks of.
  - vixen99 4y ago
    For me it's the absence of an affordable automated page turner that makes this conversion difficult. I have an Auramate from Czur (https://www.czur.com/ https://www.czur.com/) which does a pretty good job of the scanning and OCR (about 2 sec per page or double page) and corrects for curvature at the spine. However I have zero experience with other equivalent machines which are undoubtedly available.
- mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  If I bought physical books of everything I read I would run out of space in my apartment. I already have so many books, so I started only buying physical books if I felt like they contain a lot of pictures or are pleasing physical objects. For general reading kindle books being available on demand without going to a bookshop or waiting on postage, that my partner can read the same book at the same time, and it being lightweight for commuting are all also nice perks but the space saving is the key element for me

Wolfenstein98k 4y ago

Completely unacceptable. This is on top of them releasing "new" editions that do not feature the censorship changes, which they will gladly sell to you for full price. If you pay retail price again, we'll let you have the book you already purchased. Utterly unacceptable.

bootlooped 4y ago

Am I naive for wondering why Amazon would allow this? What's in it for them? It hurts the customer, it hurts their brand, it breaks the illusion that you own the book, it breaks trust in buying books on Kindle. If I were above the Kindle division on the org chart I would be furious.

anonymousiam 4y ago
Jeff Bezos, Amazon's majority shareholder and owner of The Washington Post is strongly aligned with with the culture behind this revisionism. We are living in Orwell's imagined future dystopia where history is fluid.
alexilliamson 4y ago
Money? No press is bad press
op00to 4y ago
It’s not his book. He doesn’t get to say what is done with it.

whoooooo123 4y ago

"They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove them" - Rage Against the Machine

mobutu 4y ago

This woke shit is going too far.

josephcsible 4y ago

If you get caught willfully "stealing" from a copyright holder, don't you have to pay up to $250,000 per offense? I wish it worked in the other direction too, so that Penguin Random House would have to pay $250,000 per copy of eBook that it did this too.

zzo38computer 4y ago

I think that they shouldn't remotely update ebooks, regardless of their content. (For this and other reasons, I don't really like ebooks, and I like to have a printed copy.) (It can make sense to publish errata if there are mistakes (e.g. a word is missing or misspelled, or a number is wrong), but even then you should not automatically remotely update them, and they should keep track of the changes. A public version control system would help in this case.) I think that the original versions should be preserved, but that they can make modified versions too if they want to do; however, the modified versions should not be called Roald Dahl's original versions, and should not be claimed to be them; they should be something else. (Fortunately, this seems to be what they are doing, in this case, so that is good, but it does not justify remotely updating the ebooks.) (Copyright often makes both such things difficult though if you do not hold the copyright, but copyright is bad and should be abolished, and then you can both preserve original versions and make modified versions.)

trilbyglens 4y ago

The main take away here is that if you don't own the files you don't own the product. Don't buy ebooks if you can't get your hands on actual files.

op00to 4y ago
Or do buy ebooks for stuff that you’re ok losing and the convenience is worth the extra cost over a cheap paperback copy. Buy physical books for stuff that you care about changing. I have no problem buying ebooks, because I know the deal.

LanceH 4y ago

What becomes of the authorship of such a work? They're printing his name on it like he's the author, but they've gone way beyond mere editing. Wouldn't putting his name on it alone be some kind of misrepresentation. I know it works like that with ghost writers, but those are ostensibly approved by the author. There is no such thing here.

zzo38computer 4y ago
I agree. I know that for my own works, I don't care if someone wants to remove attribution, but if someone modifies it, then I do not want them to keep the attribution to me unless they also include a notice about the modification (but no such notice is needed if the attribution is also removed). (However, I am unaware of any licenses that work like this, as far as I know.)
TchoBeer 4y ago
My parents' house has a series of Shakespeare which has the bard's works in modern English. It still says "Shakespeare" across the cover because it is, primarily, the works of Shakespeare. Does a great deal of interpretation not go into these works? Is it therefore dishonest to sell them as Shakespeare?
- oska 4y ago
  Shakespeare predates the modern concept (and cult) of the author. This means that you are comparing two entities that are different in important ways (an Elizabethan playwright and a 20th Century author).
  - LanceH 4y ago
    Shakespeare feels more like it's due to language drift and the changes are necessary to make it accessible. The Roald Dahl fiasco feels more like editors out of 1984 making edits to control thoughts. Or, without reading conspiracy into it, it feels like some current "writers" using someone else's name to push their views on how things should be. Whatever is going on they seem to be changing the story itself. I don't think language drift can be blamed, because it is an active, intentional act to change our language. Or maybe it's just a bubble wrap the children issue. This is why we each choose a book to memorize, just in case.

imchillyb 4y ago

Once censorship becomes permissive, it becomes pervasive. Once censorship becomes pervasive, it becomes overwhelming. Once censorship becomes overwhelming, we lose our sense of truth. Don't allow censorship.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

I thought the Orwellian changing of the text was repulsive enough, but this is truly bad. They could have simply sold the new, sanitized versions going forward instead of vandalizing the property of paying customers. This is one of many reasons I physically purchase all my books no matter how much room they take up.

verisimi 4y ago

Yes, I've just checked my old paper copies and these too have been updated!! /s But seriously, this is the major risk with 'everything online' our just electronic media is general. It really is possible to change history at the press of a button. Cut and paste history. And how would anyone even know this has happened? No one is paying attention. If someone did spot some history editing, why would that get any traction? Who alert the world to it? And with ai to generate reams of bullcrap... my my, most people are going to be in trouble! A connection to truth will become hard to find. There is an answer - and that is to recognise what you know (in a strong sense) from what you believe on account of something you were told or saw on a screen. You only know what you have personally - the rest is hypothetical.

anticodon 4y ago

What they were always saying about "communist" and/or "authoritarian" regimes, e.g. in «1984», they were actually saying about themselves. It's becoming obvious more and more every day.

t0bia_s 4y ago

This is one of many reasons why buying e-stuffs with DRM is no option for me.

derstander 4y ago

The article says: > Owners of Roald Dahl ebooks ... > Readers who bought electronic versions ... It has been proven to us (members of the general populace) time and again that we're not actually "buying" and we don't "own" digital media: whether ebooks, digital movies, music, or games. We are licensing or renting them. And apparently the terms of the license often include altering the contents or removing access (e.g. the Kindle 1984 fiasco) at the whim of the licensor. To be honest, I'm not really sure if the license explicitly allows that or not -- I'm not reading multi-page terms and conditions every time I make a digital purchase, even though I know I should -- but it has certainly happened on multiple occasions. It's odd to me that we've accepted this for digital purchases. Can you imagine checking out at a grocery store and being presented with a hundred page amalgamation of terms of use for every item you're buying? I know government regulation is a non-starter for many, but I personally would not mind if the government established some sort of digital version of the first sale doctrine and stopped businesses from using terms like "buy", "purchase", or "own" for practices that did not meet those criteria. Sure, let Amazon license you ebooks that can be edited or revoked at the whim of Amazon or the publisher, but let's "call a fig a fig and a trough a trough".

PointyFluff 4y ago
[dead]
WeylandYutani 4y ago
Pirates win again.
- nine_k 4y ago
  An ethical pirate buys an official copy to support the creators, but uses a ripped copy because it's not only convenient but permanent.
  - account42 4y ago
    Is it really ethical to reward abusive business practices?

barrysteve 4y ago

Some have said now is the best time to create books, and films because there is no gatekeepers. The gatekeepers are here, they moved to post-publishing.

ecef9-8c0f-4374 4y ago

What are the rules in the US about, sharing books that are no longer in sale? In the back of my mind I remember you can legal share things no body is selling anymore. Maybe I misremember.

bentley 4y ago
You misremember. Barring legal exceptions like fair use and secondhand sales, the copyright holder has exclusive control over reproduction of a work for the full duration of the copyright term. That doesn’t change if the work becomes commercially unavailable.

berniedurfee 4y ago

Yikes. I’m all for people being held accountable for their words and actions, but this is not that. If an author wants to release a new edition of a book because they themselves have evolved in their thinking, great. If an author wants to stop publication of the original work, fine. But a publisher revising a work on behalf of an author is not fine. It’s legal, they own the rights, but it’s not okay. Hopefully this changes the dynamics of rights agreements for works of art and creators can bar opt rights holders for unilaterally revising a creative work. This seems more like a legal issue rather than a culture issue.

WeylandYutani 4y ago

Sensitivity readers. Another shit thing from America.

rnernento 4y ago

Can we leverage blockchain to fight back against this kind of stuff?