5 ms·

I find this whole argument quite bizarre - we've been 'updating' books for centuries to match the current (at time of update) language, norms, fashions. The or

I find this whole argument quite bizarre - we've been 'updating' books for centuries to match the current (at time of update) language, norms, fashions. The original Shakespeare is still available, but most people read/watch adaptations or revisions (partly because Shakespeare's English has long gone). So, as long as the originals haven't been burnt by the good people of Florida, who cares about the updates?

low_tech_love 3y ago
A translation is a translation, a book is a book. Would you agree to retouch some paintings in the Louvre for the greater good? Or, less radically, take the originals down and put retouched versions up?
- at_a_remove 3y ago
  Look at all of those unrealistic beauty standards and white skin. It's time for the Ministry of Truth to put up the correct paintings.
- jankyxenon 3y ago
  I personally wouldn’t touch an updated classic with a 10 foot pole - but there’s a market for sanitized classics. If the publishers think it will help them sell more books, it’s hard to fault them for it.
- awesome_dude 3y ago
  I have a print of the Mona Lisa with sunglasses, a moustache (and goatee), the original is untouched, and unharmed by the print existing.
  - okanat 3y ago
    But you do know that the original one is the one in Louvre and saw a least a detailed photo of it, maybe even the real thing. Racist, misogynist or whatever, the art in its original form is still there. When the books are censored the opposite happens. The original in the people's mind changes and the original nuances of the art is lost. Moreover we lose our understanding of progress. The change of the worldview and the values is an important part of understanding art. If we would like to show the progress we made and our current values, we should create our own classics for generations to read and understand us, rather than muddying the water between us and the previous generations.
    - awesome_dude 3y ago
      Books aren't being "censored" Please show me where all the book burnings are taking place. Please show me where librarians are being threatened physically for stocking the originals. Please show me where laws are being made preventing you from owning/accessing a copy of the original.
      - crote 3y ago
        > Please show me where laws are being made preventing you from owning/accessing a copy of the original. This one is just called "intellectual property rights". If you don't already have a copy of the original, you won't be able to get one if the rightsholder chooses to withdraw it from sale.
      - awesome_dude 3y ago
        Apparently me not selling you a copy is preventing you from buying any of the trillion other copies left in circulation. Also in no other industry is a company forced to sell you a version of anything, otherwise where can I buy me a brand new Ford AC Cobra
        low_tech_love 3y ago
        If you think that a book is the same as a car then it seems to me that you missed the point entirely. Have you ever written?
        awesome_dude 3y ago
        The point has been clear all along. No books are being censored. Nobody is preventing anyone from accessing the original version. The publisher is not, and should not, be forced by anyone to produce any version at all. If you had been an author you would understand that selling your rights to a publisher is no guarantee that the book will even be printed, there have been numerous examples over the decades of rights being acquired for a work and then never exercised such that that work is never published (this is especially common with movie rights), Complaining that you as an author want to retain a right on editorial actions is fine if you dont sell that right. But if you were an author you would know that that doesn't always happen. Complaining as a consumer makes very little sense. It's fine to air your grievance, but the truth is you have no right on what is produced at all.
  - low_tech_love 3y ago
    Are you selling that by passing it as the original, or by telling people that these are minor changes for the greater good, and that it’s mostly the same as the original?
    - awesome_dude 3y ago
      Nobody is presenting the changes to the book as "original"
- mavhc 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL1iGnKQ5Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL1iGnKQ5Rs
bitwize 3y ago
The copyright holders of Shakespeare don't put the First Folio edition of Romeo and Juliet out of print when Baz Luhrmann releases Romeo + Juliet. When works go out of print they become rare and hard to find. There are only 200 or so original prints of the First Folio in existence; Shakespeare is kept alive by subsequent reprintings. When publishers "update" old works for modern sensibilities, it's with an eye toward replacing the old version with the new; they simply refuse to publish the old version. If it's a print book it'll still be there, but become slowly harder and harder to obtain until it's nearly impossible, and most people don't even remember it anyway[0]. If it's an e-book, it's as good as gone; anyone who still has it has committed a felony to preserve it. Long copyright terms help enormously with this. Some books don't even get replaced. The word "nerd" is thought to have originated from the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo; Seuss's publisher has decided the book is too racist to continue to be in print, so it too has gone on to book afterlife. [0] The black pygmy Oompa-Loompas were almost a "Mandela effect" thing for me; my school library had a 1960s edition of the book. Only when I read about the changes later in life was I like "Oh, so that's why the Oompa-Loompas are different."
- awesome_dude 3y ago
  There's a bit to this The copyright OWNERS are to be denied their rights to do with their property what they wish? Further, they're forced to print some version of their property? Honestly, no, books go in and out of print all day long, and first editions have always been 'collectible' because they're 'original' Changes/edits happen all the time (hell some authors keep web pages of errata because their originals require updating), just that the edits in question have people clutching their pearls.
  - TheCoelacanth 3y ago
    The obvious answer to this: don't let people own history. Copyright shouldn't extend such an absurdly long time as to affect most of these books.
    - awesome_dude 3y ago
arp242 3y ago
The original plan was to publish only the revised editions, and not the originals. This ALSO meant that e-book copies would be automatically updated. I don't think "we'll make the original writings unavailable to anyone" is a good thing. They walked back on that after the controversy though, and you can now buy both the original and revised editions. It would be like someone deciding that only the NIV of the bible can be bought from now on, and the KJV wouldn't be sold any more and all e-book versions of the KJV would be updated. For modern readers the NIV is clearly the better translation IMO, but there's obviously also a lot of value in having the KJV around (as well as other editions). I also have some gripes with some specific edits they made – at times it feels like they weren't even trying to replace the original with something decent and some edits are ridiculous – but that's more minor. The biggest problem was the "here are the new versions and these are the versions everyone should have and the original versions never existed" kind of attitude they seemed to have.

low_tech_love 3y ago

A translation is a translation, a book is a book. Would you agree to retouch some paintings in the Louvre for the greater good? Or, less radically, take the originals down and put retouched versions up?

at_a_remove 3y ago
Look at all of those unrealistic beauty standards and white skin. It's time for the Ministry of Truth to put up the correct paintings.
jankyxenon 3y ago
I personally wouldn’t touch an updated classic with a 10 foot pole - but there’s a market for sanitized classics. If the publishers think it will help them sell more books, it’s hard to fault them for it.
awesome_dude 3y ago
I have a print of the Mona Lisa with sunglasses, a moustache (and goatee), the original is untouched, and unharmed by the print existing.
- okanat 3y ago
  But you do know that the original one is the one in Louvre and saw a least a detailed photo of it, maybe even the real thing. Racist, misogynist or whatever, the art in its original form is still there. When the books are censored the opposite happens. The original in the people's mind changes and the original nuances of the art is lost. Moreover we lose our understanding of progress. The change of the worldview and the values is an important part of understanding art. If we would like to show the progress we made and our current values, we should create our own classics for generations to read and understand us, rather than muddying the water between us and the previous generations.
  - awesome_dude 3y ago
    Books aren't being "censored" Please show me where all the book burnings are taking place. Please show me where librarians are being threatened physically for stocking the originals. Please show me where laws are being made preventing you from owning/accessing a copy of the original.
    - crote 3y ago
      > Please show me where laws are being made preventing you from owning/accessing a copy of the original. This one is just called "intellectual property rights". If you don't already have a copy of the original, you won't be able to get one if the rightsholder chooses to withdraw it from sale.
    - awesome_dude 3y ago
      Apparently me not selling you a copy is preventing you from buying any of the trillion other copies left in circulation. Also in no other industry is a company forced to sell you a version of anything, otherwise where can I buy me a brand new Ford AC Cobra
      - low_tech_love 3y ago
        If you think that a book is the same as a car then it seems to me that you missed the point entirely. Have you ever written?
        awesome_dude 3y ago
        The point has been clear all along. No books are being censored. Nobody is preventing anyone from accessing the original version. The publisher is not, and should not, be forced by anyone to produce any version at all. If you had been an author you would understand that selling your rights to a publisher is no guarantee that the book will even be printed, there have been numerous examples over the decades of rights being acquired for a work and then never exercised such that that work is never published (this is especially common with movie rights), Complaining that you as an author want to retain a right on editorial actions is fine if you dont sell that right. But if you were an author you would know that that doesn't always happen. Complaining as a consumer makes very little sense. It's fine to air your grievance, but the truth is you have no right on what is produced at all.
- low_tech_love 3y ago
  Are you selling that by passing it as the original, or by telling people that these are minor changes for the greater good, and that it’s mostly the same as the original?
  - awesome_dude 3y ago
    Nobody is presenting the changes to the book as "original"
mavhc 3y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL1iGnKQ5Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL1iGnKQ5Rs

bitwize 3y ago

The copyright holders of Shakespeare don't put the First Folio edition of Romeo and Juliet out of print when Baz Luhrmann releases Romeo + Juliet. When works go out of print they become rare and hard to find. There are only 200 or so original prints of the First Folio in existence; Shakespeare is kept alive by subsequent reprintings. When publishers "update" old works for modern sensibilities, it's with an eye toward replacing the old version with the new; they simply refuse to publish the old version. If it's a print book it'll still be there, but become slowly harder and harder to obtain until it's nearly impossible, and most people don't even remember it anyway[0]. If it's an e-book, it's as good as gone; anyone who still has it has committed a felony to preserve it. Long copyright terms help enormously with this. Some books don't even get replaced. The word "nerd" is thought to have originated from the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo; Seuss's publisher has decided the book is too racist to continue to be in print, so it too has gone on to book afterlife. [0] The black pygmy Oompa-Loompas were almost a "Mandela effect" thing for me; my school library had a 1960s edition of the book. Only when I read about the changes later in life was I like "Oh, so that's why the Oompa-Loompas are different."

awesome_dude 3y ago
There's a bit to this The copyright OWNERS are to be denied their rights to do with their property what they wish? Further, they're forced to print some version of their property? Honestly, no, books go in and out of print all day long, and first editions have always been 'collectible' because they're 'original' Changes/edits happen all the time (hell some authors keep web pages of errata because their originals require updating), just that the edits in question have people clutching their pearls.
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  The obvious answer to this: don't let people own history. Copyright shouldn't extend such an absurdly long time as to affect most of these books.
  - awesome_dude 3y ago

arp242 3y ago

The original plan was to publish only the revised editions, and not the originals. This ALSO meant that e-book copies would be automatically updated. I don't think "we'll make the original writings unavailable to anyone" is a good thing. They walked back on that after the controversy though, and you can now buy both the original and revised editions. It would be like someone deciding that only the NIV of the bible can be bought from now on, and the KJV wouldn't be sold any more and all e-book versions of the KJV would be updated. For modern readers the NIV is clearly the better translation IMO, but there's obviously also a lot of value in having the KJV around (as well as other editions). I also have some gripes with some specific edits they made – at times it feels like they weren't even trying to replace the original with something decent and some edits are ridiculous – but that's more minor. The biggest problem was the "here are the new versions and these are the versions everyone should have and the original versions never existed" kind of attitude they seemed to have.