Kindle

watty

Old news really...

But for those not up to speed

Background.
Kindle is the eBook reader from Amazon, the etailer that started by only selling books. It's promoted as an easy way to carry and access your library of books. You "buy" eBooks from Amazon and they are delivered by "Whispernet" automatically and free (Actually the Mobile Phone Network).

Strange choice of name. Think Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451.

Fast forward
Recently a significant number of people got a Refund. Only later did they realise that it was for 1984 and/or Animal Farm. Which was gone. Completely. Including all annotations/notes the Kindle owner might have added.

OK, poor show, but the CT?
Read the details.

1984 has the "Ministry of Truth". The History of Events can change. Even Daily. (Think if Google did eBooks*). History, you see, is what is written.

Is it an ironic coincidence that it was 1984 that was mis-sold and deleted? Is it a plot to make people think about DRM and Google's assault on the world of Publishing (that could kill every newspaper and book publisher). Is History What Google says it is.

Amazon claim it won't happen again. But that's a lie. If a Court orders it or Amazon is taken over any book on your Kindle can "be not".


(*You know they do, and have acquired ALL orphaned works Copyright by default and are scanning EVERY book?)


It turns out in the fine print that you don't buy books from Amazon for the Kindle. Ever. You are renting a licence to read them.

The Juicy Details to back up my post
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/18/amazon_removes_1984_from_kindle/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/24/amazon_big_brother_apology/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/25/kindle_conundrum/

I'm not exaggerating about Google
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/27/google_books_and_privacy/
Read all the related Googe Book/Copyright/Privacy/Orphan issue links
Before History is (re)written

(do skim the comments on the articles, some are intelligent)

EDIT
Forgot these.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/copyfraud/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/16/amazon_google_books_kindle/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/01/google_ebook_this_year/

emeraldstar

Long live the codex!

watty

People think 1984 was about the Future. It and Animal Farm were in a measure written in reaction to Spanish Civil War.

(Editing of Reality stuff etc moved here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055634321)

People are Editing history TODAY, in the Real world. You have to ask why?

stevejazzx

watty wrote: »

People think 1984 was about the Future. It and Animal Farm were in a measure written in reaction to Spanish Civil War.


1984 may have been a reversal of the date written, 1948.

I think there are many Consipracies "out there" and most by Goverments and Big Corporations. Mostly the result is to reduce your freedom and Aim is consildate Power, Control and perhaps Profit. (Control & Empire rather than Absolute Profit becomes the prime motivation of large Multinationals).

The "Real" Conspiracies are not the obvious ones. Some Governments may even like those as a distraction from the real Conspiracies.



See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8166020.stm
Russia has been doing this since 1918!

There is a photo of Lenin with Trotsky "painted out". It was in that BBC article originally and now it's gone!

See http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hick0088/classes/csci_2101/false.html

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union

People are Editing history TODAY, in the Real world. You have to ask why?

I like the bit about amazon and google.
The Russian bit however is incorrect.
The article says that the main reason for history commision is becasue of the Red Armys atrocities during WW2 and that they were occupiers as much as liberators. This is rubbish frankly. 20 million russians died in WW2. They don't occupy Germany, Poland Czech today and without their 20 million dead solidiers we may all be speaking German.
And the bit about Trotsky beinbg airbrushed out is just more western proporganda. They did far worst things than airbrush people out of photos! What use is it anyway if we have archived recordings of the real photographs? Orwell is one of my heroes however but reading thorugh his letters and memoirs it seems that he wasn't immune to his own countrys propoganda.

watty

I think Orwell was a Communist in the 1930s but the Spanish Civil War cured him (The Communists in Spain used the Civil war also as a "cover" for Purges). I think the last page of Animal Farm says in the end there was no difference between the sides of the Civil War.

(See http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055634321)

I'd agree that the Russians, Not the Americans, won the War in Europe.


However the main point is about Amazon and Google and What Is Happening In The World Of Books.

I think it's just a copyright issue.

There's nothing to suggest that anyone is trying to censor the book.
Especially how you can pick it up at any book shop for a fiver.

stevejazzx

watty wrote: »

I think Orwell was a Communist in the 1930s but the Spanish Civil War cured him (The Communists in Spain used the Civil war also as a "cover" for Purges). I think the last page of Animal Farm says in the end there was no difference between the sides of the Civil War.

I'd agree that the Russians, Not the Americans, won the War in Europe.

And 20 Million Russian deaths is a conservative estimate. But how many killed by the Soviet Machine?

There ARE some things the Russians rather we didn't talk about,
But and this deserves threads of its own:
Molotov–Ribbentrop
Ask the Polish about Katyn.
Ask the Finns about Karelia.
Or Berliners about The Wall
Berlin in 1945,
Berlin Airbridge.
1948 Uprising in East Germany
1956 Uprising in Hungry
1968 Uprising in Czechslovakia
The Gulags.
The Mental Hospitals.
The Yalta Agreement.
The Stalin era POW Camps.
How many of their own soldiers they shot or exiled of Returing POW?

Not all Western Propaganda. A lot has changed since 1989. The Russian stuff was just making the point that to Orwell, 1984 was not pure fiction or about the distant future. It was a contemporary warning. A few years later we had McCarthy in USA, a worse disease than "Communism" which had the seeds of its own destruction built in anyway.

However the main point is about Amazon and Google and What Is Happening In The World Of Books.

Well I won't go into the whole Russian thing - that deserves it's own thread as you say.


It is a very interesting CT re: books. They are still a version powerful weapon for arming the minds of people. It is after all, the major religious texts that currently controls (or has major input into) the actions of billions of people across the world.
Imagine being able to rewirte that? Some say it has already been done to a large extent! So the landmark prophetic text of 1984 seems like a particularly funny title for amazon to mix up.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

The whole russian thing has it's own thread now, so feel free to continue the discussion there.

watty

It's not about the book, or even particularly censorship.

It's about who has control in the future?

One theory is that the choice of the book is deliberate and the whole thing is ploy to expose the destructiveness of DRM.

In that case is the Publisher that complained the virtuious person "saving" us from DRM? Or Amazon themselves deliberately shooting themselves in the foot.

Does Google want us to have all Books and Newspapers free (but with their adverts. An Advertising Company, not a Search engine!)?

If there is a conspiracy who of the four parties (Amazon, Google, traditional Publishers or EFF-types) is behind it and what is motive?

The "coincidence" of the first two titles to be revoked like this stretches credulity.

Why couldn't Amazon say "My Bad, here's lots of Money Mr Publisher", offereing enough to convince the Publisher? The negative publicity is likely to really hurt Kindle sales now that people realise they are NOT buying the books, but renting a licence to read.

Why did the Publisher refuse rights and bring the issue up? The titles are not valuable now and out of copyright in a few large English Speaking countries. Why won't they licence those titles?

Why did Amazon not inform people in advance?

Why did Amazon delete peoples' notes too?

What is Google up to with it's seizure of all Orphan Copyright works by default?

How will Amazon's and other companies eBook selling be affected by Google offering over 500,000 free books initally (The long running Project Gutenberg only has 22,000 eBooks in English so far) and Google scanning EVERY BOOK in the world? The US Government and Courts seem to have ultimately given Google the greatest Monopoly ever, the entire published books of the Human race in electronic format.

watty

stevejazzx wrote: »

Imagine being able to rewirte that? Some say it has already been done to a large extent! So the landmark prophetic text of 1984 seems like a particularly funny title for amazon to mix up.

Hard for me to swallow that level of Ironic Coincidence.

thecommander

watty wrote: »

The "coincidence" of the first two titles to be revoked like this stretches credulity.

So are you saying Amazon is lying and the publisher didn't revoke the copyright?

Or the publisher chose 2 books that would raise suspicion and asked for them to be pulled?

Overheal

watty wrote: »

Hard for me to swallow that level of Ironic Coincidence.

Like JFK being killed by a snipers bullet, that missed him, then ricocheted off his armored car, killing him anyway? The very thing meant to protect him? Eh? Eh?

Actually Im probably walking into a **** storm, bringing up JFK, if you wanna talk about CTs :pac:

meglome

Overheal wrote: »

Like JFK being killed by a snipers bullet, that missed him, then ricocheted off his armored car, killing him anyway? The very thing meant to protect him? Eh? Eh?

When did that happen?

prinz

When someone comes to my door to confiscate actual books then I'll start to worry. Once again, why would you claim they are rewriting history when every self respecting bookshop in the land has copies of these books for sale?

bonkey

prinz wrote: »

When someone comes to my door to confiscate actual books then I'll start to worry. Once again, why would you claim they are rewriting history when every self respecting bookshop in the land has copies of these books for sale?

I remember re-reading a book some years back...and it didn't end how I remember it. I found it very weird. What was weirder was that I discussed it with a friend of mine who I knew also read the author in question and who had also re-read the book. They remembered the same ending I did, and had the same weird feeling that the ending had changed.

Neither of us could find a copy of the book with the ending we both recall reading when it was was originally published.

It doesn't help us that bookstores still have copies of the book. It doesn't help us that its still in print and has always been in print since it was first published. Short of finding a copy with what we both recall being the ending, we have absolutely nothing to indicate that one of us didn't imagine it, and somehow influence the other to believe the same thing whilst discussing it over a pint.

OK...I admit that with classics, there will almost-always be first-editions knocking around, so that someone could verify if it had changed or not...but that's not much use to the masses, who cannot show that the version they read is the original and probably wouldn't even question it.

Of course, this only goes to show that the Kindle thing is nothing new. Books being on paper is no safeguard. Never was.

thecommander

bonkey wrote: »

I remember re-reading a book some years back...and it didn't end how I remember it.

How did your version end?

Edit: Maybe you saw the movie and remembered that? Haven't seen the movie so not sure if its different to the buke.

watty

Ironically Farenhiet 451 was "edited" by the publisher at one stage.

It happens.

I had both versions of Magician once, but that's explained in the preface of the 2nd edition.

I watched a film on TV and later could not watch the Video Rental version. TV versions are often edited for language, violence, sex or drugs depending on the desire of the Broadcaster.

American books are always published "as is" with Americanism (or very nearly always)
Non-American English titles are mostly edited for the US market:
:: Title may change
:: All spelllings changed
:: parts will be cut or re-written.

bonkey

thecommander wrote: »

How did your version end?

Edit: Maybe you saw the movie and remembered that? Haven't seen the movie so not sure if its different to the buke.

Hey...that's weird...how did you know that I was talking about a book that was turned into a movie?

I'm 100% sure, though, that it wasn't the movie ending.

watty

Maybe you read it in US and UK editions. Or Readers Digest version (which has of course, you guessed, a US and UK different abridged or condensed versions).

watty

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/05/google_book_defense/

" I don't want to be - what's the woman in Little Orphan Annie that runs the orphanage? I'm blanking - I don't want to be her."

But he doesn't seem to hear the argument. When the voices complain that Google has approached the orphan-works issue in precisely the wrong way, Clancy responds by saying that if they wanted to, anyone else could take the same approach. Google likes to accuse its Book Search critics of contradictory logic. But surely, there's a contradiction at the heart of its own argument.

r3nu4l

Regarding books and their editing, it is true that across the UK, Europe and the USA some book endings or other parts are tweaked to better suit the intended audience. That's sound business practice and while not necessarily done for nefarious purposes, I'm sure that it could very well happen.

However, anyone with early editions or who is a collector would certainly raise a fuss about substantial editing of 'important' books such as 1984.

Also, the fact that 1904 and Animal Farm were the first two for this to happen to strikes me as total but ironic coincidence. Once again I ask, why would a company like Amazon go around leaving 'clues' for conspiracy theorists?

In this post ElNino states:

The issue was that the George Orwell books are out of copyright in the rest of the world but still in copyright in the U.S. The supplier who provided Amazon their version didn't own the Orwell U.S. copyright so Amazon was breaking the law by selling that version. However Amazon is still selling the copyrighted versions of the Orwell books so they should have just compensated the copyright holders instead of cancelling the sales and deleting the books from customers' Kindles.

So the supplier didn't hold copyright and Amazon should have just backward-compensated the copyright owners. Sounds good but I'm sure it's not that simple, legally. It was probably better to delete the existing copies and negotiate copyright fully.

1984 is now available on the Kindle once more. I'm sure that plenty of people will be comparing the Kindle text to the print version available globally...