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infmom
07/19/09

In reply to Australia Helps Get 1984 Back On Your Kindle
People should be buying Brave New World instead. Huxley described today's dittoheads (aka Deltas) amazingly well.
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Edited by infmom at 07/19/09 3:17 PM infmom was starred infmom was unstarred

frigg
07/19/09

In reply to Australia Helps Get 1984 Back On Your Kindle
Involuntary removal of "1984" from a reading device by a parent company has got to be a seminal moment in the history of publishing, if not the history of irony.
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smcallah
07/19/09

@frigg: But the reason it was removed it because the publisher had no right to publish it in the U.S. Amazon returned the money to the people that bought it. And they can simply turn around and buy it from the publisher that actually has the rights to it in the U.S.

I still don't see how this is still a story once ALL of the facts are presented. Which the blogs don't seem to do. They just want the sensational headline.
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Peter Shultz
07/19/09

@smcallah:

Exactly.

If someone published a paper book that they didn't have the rights to, and the rights holder found out, all unsold copies would be destroyed and sold copies would be bought back from where they were purchased.

The only thing out of the ordinary is that this was done automatically, which is disturbing, but not as crazy as people are making it out to be.
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GitEmSteveDave_DefinesTurgid
07/19/09

@frigg: For irony, I think nothing could beat:

Placing your Kindle with a copy of Fahrenheit 451 on it on your bookshelf, it catches fire, and burns all of your books.
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Edited by GitEmSteveDave_DefinesTurgid at 07/19/09 11:32 AM

jetRink
07/19/09

@smcallah: The real reason this story is important is that it underlines the changing meaning of ownership and privacy in a world of bits instead of paper. The 1984 angle is giving the story a 20th century, man vs government angle, but it is a more 21st century problem. In the 20th century world, you can buy a house and be assured that the government can't put telescreens in it to spy on you. You can send a letter and be reasonably certain that a Stasi officer isn't going to be steaming it open. In the 21st century, you can buy a Kindle, or a use GMail, or store data with Microsoft and they can apparently rummage around in your data and even modify it at will. I own a Kindle and use GMail, but things like this do give me pause. Perhaps a more apropos book to delete would have been "Brave New World" because that's where we're living.
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FredicvsMaximvs promoted this comment Edited by jetRink at 07/19/09 11:37 AM jetRink was starred jetRink was unstarred

switchblade saints
07/19/09

@smcallah: agreed. If it was a Harry Potter novel, everyone would be up in arms deleting the illegal copy themselves, outraged that someone would pirate it and donate money to amazon to give to JK Rowling to make up for the mishap.
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frigg
07/19/09

@smcallah: All of that may be true and none of it matters.

The fact that "1984" predicted the technological surveillance state only to become a victim of it itself, to become a victim of one of the most powerful metaphors in our culture, Big Brother, hatched by the very same book, to become policed by the intellectual totalitarianism described in it – you thought you bought it? No you didn’t! – to exterminate words that existed on Tuesday but disappear by Wednesday… everything intellectually evil in the book happening to the book itself is something any thoughtful person in publishing would want to – should want to! - avoid more than anything else.

I’m sure it would have been easy enough to work out a payment swap behind the scenes to the rightful copyright owners if that’s the problem. Anything to avoid the magnitude of the gesture: "1984" predicts Big Brother, and Amazon Big Brothers "1984"!

Has anyone at Amazon even read the fucking book?
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frigg
07/19/09

@Summermodoin'_GitEmSteveDave: Now that you mention it, I'm having second thoughts about installing the latest firmware update: "fixes certain bugs and enables remote ignition protocol and other security features."
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ghmlco
07/19/09

@Peter Shultz: No, the customers would still own the SOLD copies.

The retailer may pull the unsold copies off the sheves, but they're not sending hit squads into people's homes to retrieve books already purchased.

Which is effectively what Amazon did. I bought the book, paid for it, took it home, and now someone is sneaking in the window trying to recover MY property because they made a mistake.
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smcallah
07/19/09

@frigg: If Amazon did this to censor a book, you might have a point. If Amazon was the Federal Government, you might have a point. If Amazon was told by the Federal Government to pull the book, you might have a point. None of that happened. If it happens, then surely, who can be for that?

But the book was removed from Kindles, the money refunded, and the book was available FOR LESS MONEY.

So who exactly lost out here, besides the improper publisher?
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Sabbatai
07/19/09

@smcallah: Of course Amazon is not the Federal Government. But what if schools decided to go all kindle, or all electronic in any fashion. Many have such plans.

What if publishing in general goes digital altogether and print becomes a thing of the past.

This isn't some huge conspiracy theory this is how things will LIKELY proceed.

That being the case... it would be important to remember that this happened. Not just to hold the Government or any "shadowy orgainization" from doing something "evil" but so that people have to be accountable for the information they put out there.

What if some newspaper wrote complete lies about a politician (gasp!) and then word got out only for people to go try to read it... and it is pulled. The people who already read it can't access it either. No proof it was ever said, but the information got out there anyway.

My example is kind of simple...I haven't slept in 2 days... but I hope my point got across.

Basically: It isn't that big of a deal. It is indeed worth remembering.
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frigg
07/20/09

@smcallah: Not the main point, but I believe the books are now listed in Amazon's store as "not yet available."
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