7 ms·

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

• 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.
      • can16358p 4y ago
        While I agree with you and support the same views personally, we, collectively, should better and fight against the censoring ideology from ground up instead of using (potentially illegal) workarounds like piracy. Having said that, I'd happily pirate any content that someone censors, and not give any single penny to any censoring authority (for other non-censored content too) and wouldn't feel any guilt doing it.
      • iamtedd 4y ago
        They're kids. They're probably already doing that.
        • thaumasiotes 4y ago
          You and koolba are seriously overestimating the number of children (and adults...) who are willing to read a book voluntarily. Teaching people to get books off of libgen is never going to be high impact, because very few people want any books.
    • paxys 4y ago
      They are already better at it than you.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    • bluGill 4y ago
      You should go to your local school board and demand they pass a resolution forbidding the library from having copies of the new version generally available. They can keep the new version behind the desk, only available after the student proves to the librarian they understand this is a non original and lacks the literary value of the original. Do the same with public libraries, except the new version is kept next to the almost porn books.
  • throwaway4aday 4y ago
    and 50 years from now?
• andsoitis 4y ago
  An author, and by extension the vehicle that they choose to shepherd their work after death, should have full rights to do whatever with their work. Having said that, I can speculate that an author could stipulate that no changes may be made but I can also imagine that many may choose to allow flexibility.
  • Syntonicles 4y ago
    I think they choose the simplest path that sounds reasonable. Who would have anticipated edits like these? All I'm suggesting to provide an easy alternative. The simplest path for me is throwing an MIT or GPL snippet in my root folder. A copy/paste clause on a static website should be sufficient.
  • JPKab 4y ago
    Netflix owns the rights. This isn't the author's family or anyone else. Just a dumb bunch of soulless LA based execs virtue signaling/moralizing in between their coke/hooker binges. https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights-to-roald-dahls-childrens-books-3393120 https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights...
    • andsoitis 4y ago
      Not only are you wrong to imply that Netflix is making edits to the books (it is the publisher, Penguin), Penguin is also going to 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...
      • JPKab 4y ago
        So they're editing the Kindle versions and kind enough to allow us to spend money on the originals we already paid for? Awesome.
      • JPKab 4y ago
        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... Netflix owns RDSC. RDSC had to authorize changes by Penguin. I'm sure you're excited about the new version, given your confident denunciation that was dead wrong.
• pyuser583 4y ago
  How about limitations on copyright? The problem isn’t the new version. The problem is censoring the old version.
  • Syntonicles 4y ago
    I agree with you, but I think it's easier to assist individuals in being proactive than it is to lobby for impactful legal change across multiple continents. I think Keanu Reeve's approach in restricting digital edits to his acting via contracts is the best interim solution until the world converges on something.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • rcoveson 4y ago
    I think there are two major problems. There's a legal+technical+cultural problem where people aren't purchasing immutable copies of books or other media anymore, instead they're purchasing a complicated license that grants access to whatever they say the thing is at the time you request it. That problem can have a legal solution, or a technical+culutural solution (the technical solution alone is insufficient since there's still the cultural issue that most people don't care most of the time). But there's also a separate purely cultural problem, which is that people felt like these changes to these books were a good idea in the first place. To me that's at least as concerning as the first problem. The sorts of changes made here--e.g. expunging usages of the word "fat"--are totally disrespectful to the author and the readership. There is already an established pattern for making material changes to a book for the sake of young and/or sensitive readers: Publish an abridged version. Make it clear that it is abridged, and sell it as a separate product. I remember reading a handful of classics as a very young kid in a format like this, which I'm sure I couldn't have managed at that age otherwise. That second problem is emphatically not a legal problem, or even a much of a moral problem. Nobody should be prevented from behaving this way. But it's still evidence of a cultural problem. You don't make material modifications to a wildly-successful author's books and publish them like it's just another printing. That wasn't the way things were done two decades ago, and it's starting to be the way things are done now. Not illegal, and maybe not even morally wrong, just... not good.
• worrycue 4y ago
  > Should we lobby to limit the rights of an estate edit posthumously? Maybe a law that requires the old version be made available for free with the digital purchases. This way people can choose which version they want to read. It cost publishers and distributors next to nothing - you can have all the versions within the same "file" so there is no increase in distribution overhead apart from a minor increase in file size.
  • Brian_K_White 4y ago
    Combined. If you want to sell a new modified version, you can, but the original goes into the library of congress and into the public domain. Also what does this do to citations? If we want to say that copyright also includes editright (does it? I would never have said so), and so the current owner of a copyright also has the right to edit, well ok but then is the new text still attributed to the original author? If you put words into someone else's mouth, what does it mean anymore to quote from a book and cite the author, but the author didn't actually say that? Somehow the new work should be divorced from the original author, except, the bulk is valued and that came from the original author, which should not be stolen from them. It's almost like it doesn't matter if you like it or not, what an author wrote is what they wrote. Editing it to taste is nothing but an absolute lack of integrity.
• JPKab 4y ago
  https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights-to-roald-dahls-childrens-books-3393120 https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/netflix-acquires-rights...
• layer8 4y ago
  > We need something akin to a software license that an individual author can include in their contracts with publishers and in their estate planning. Most authors wouldn’t have the bargaining power against publishers to have that included, unless it is granted as an inalienable right by law.
• whiddershins 4y ago
  Who cares what ‘the estate’ approves of? This is changing something after someone purchased it.
• calderknight 4y ago
  We invented an amazing technology for sharing at near-zero cost. IMO, ideally, authors should offer digital copies of their books gratis-with-the-option-of-paying. Obviously, these copies shouldn't come with restrictions. The upside of truly free books for everyone is so great that any alternative seems terrible.
  • koolba 4y ago
    I’m not aware of any authors making any of these changes. It’s always the copyright holders of dead ones.
    • calderknight 4y ago
      Alive authors often become dead
  • zzo38computer 4y ago
    > IMO, ideally, authors should offer digital copies of their books gratis-with-the-option-of-paying. Obviously, these copies shouldn't come with restrictions. I agree. However, authors should not be required to do such a thing, but nobody should be prohibited from freely making copies (and modified versions, as long as they are not claimed to be the original version, and not replacing a copy that someone else has already made that does not want their copy replaced), even if the author does not do it by themself. If copyright laws are abolished, then this will be legally possible.
• p1necone 4y ago
  This always seems to be the case with things like this. The person who owns the intellectual property rights for the book is publishing a modified version of the book. Absolutely be mad about your already purchased copy being changed under your nose - that probably should be illegal. But it's not really clear whether there's anything sensible that can be done past that without ironically violating the freedom of speech of the person publishing the book. (I would definitely support much shorter copyright terms though. An author who died 30 years ago doesn't need encouragement to produce more works anymore, which is supposed to be what copyright is for)
  • account42 4y ago
    > But it's not really clear whether there's anything sensible that can be done past that without ironically violating the freedom of speech of the person publishing the book. There is a simple solution. Require continued distribution for continued copyright protection - for every single version individually.
  • matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > violating the freedom of speech of the person publishing the book Corporations are not human beings. I'm not even sure they should have any rights at all, to say nothing of free speech.
    • FredPret 4y ago
      Well, corporations need separate financial and legal “lives” or else there’s no point to them. There’s also always a person behind it, no matter how many corporations deep you go into the ownership structure. But this Kindle censorship stuff is the fault of the woke scolds. Their spirit could be found in a society of superstitious cavemen, among the religious nuts of the 1600’s, and now this. In the forward march of humanism, this particular fight is a social and legal one.
• alwayslikethis 4y ago
  I didn't see this book edit as the main issue at play here at all. I'm not that furious with the edited book, even if I may disagree with it. It just shows the importance of having full control of your own devices. My ereaders are not connected to the internet, and all ebooks are sideloaded.
• Khaine 4y ago
  The author himself did not support his books being changed [1]. Even without that, changing the works is cultural vandalism. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/25/roald-dahl-threatened-publisher-with-enormous-crocodile-if-they-changed-his-words https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/25/roald-dahl-thr...
• zzo38computer 4y ago
  > Should we lobby to limit the rights of an estate edit posthumously? No, except perhaps that they should not be permitted to sell versions that are modified if they claim to be the original work by the original author; if they do not claim such a thing, then it should be permitted. (However, the original version should still be made available too. If it was not copyright then anyone could do so if they want to do.) However, they should not remotely change ebooks automatically in this way. This is independent of whether or not they are allowed to make modified versions (which should be allowed). > Should a blurb indicating the edit be required on the cover of the book? Yes. There are a few ways to do such a thing; one way would be to write "abridged" like another comment in this thread suggests. But it should be marked so it is clear that it is different from the original work.
• pie_flavor 4y ago
  It should be noted that the Dahl estate is not his descendants, or lawyers that get paid to preserve his vision. It's Netflix, who bought the entire thing.
• scotty79 4y ago
  > Flagrant piracy This is always the only correct answer to copyright insanity. Information wants to be free. Copyright is just a game. You participate mostly voluntarily. You can opt out of playing it at any time. Let them figure out how to bring you back into the game if they can.