But lets see the Positive side: Now the Nazis wont have to burn thousands of books, saving tons of co2 in their Plan to take over the world with propaganda. So, yay for the envoirment I guess
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The man who made that video is annoying. The story he read out was from the twits by Roald dahl, it was a few years back that those changes were made. Dahl was a great author but wasn’t a very pc person , his family have had to apologise for his anti semitism. So whoever is in charge of his works wanted to make them more modern and less insulting which misses the point of Dahl but anyway. They’ve done it with Enid blyton books too. In one of hers they have a dog called the n word so probably more necessary with her work lol.
All amazon have done is update the digital edition to the match the latest edition. There’s a million things to hate Amazon for you don’t have to make things up. And also if you want books that can’t be altered buy a paper book, you own them and they don’t run out of electricity.
Dahl was a great author but wasn’t a very pc person , his family have had to apologise for his anti semitism.
That is putting it very mildly.
"There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere. Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”
He said that in *checks notes* 1971.
Worse, it was in response to criticism to an article he wrote that was justifiably criticizing Israel at a time when it wasn’t so popular to do so. And when he was accused of the old “you’re anti-Israel, so you’re anti-semitic” nonsense, he decided to go, “hell yeah I am!”
Oof
He’d probably like today’s politics, it seems fashionable to just lean into anything bad someone says about you.
That’s still not OK
Doing it silently without consent is definitely not okay. Or if they do such a thing, they should notify the user and give an option to rollback if they wanted. That’s what a company that respect users would do.
Printing new editions of a book was always a thing
Forcibly destroying all previous editions is not however
Quietly swapping your earlier edition with the current edition was not, however.
Yeah, I’m with you on this one.
And also if you want books that can’t be altered buy a paper book
The books on my 1st generation kindle have been there 15 years unchanged. Just don’t connect devices to the internet that don’t need to be connected to the internet.
The “internet of things” that was sold to us is just a way for corporations to exert more control. I am pro-technology. I think an ebook reader is infinitely more useful and valuable than a paper book - I can fit tens of thousands of books on my Kindle, more than I could read in a lifetime, and a full charge lasts more than a month at a time.
I can use whatever font I want, I can scale the size to what I want. I can change the margins, place bookmarks, gives a % of how far I am in a book, skip to chapters, etc.
Like, it’s objectively better than a book.
But it doesn’t need to be connected to the internet.
Changing words seems wrong with it sanitizing and makes future audiences unaware of how bigoted and flawed writers of a time period might be. It underplays cruel parts of society leading to a flawed rosy colored outlook. Now future readers won’t know how far from PC writers like Dahl were.
Amazon’s ebook store front (as well as the internet in general) is flooded with AI slop. The internet is a place where the signal to noise ratio is dropping rapidly.
Physical media is necessary. Especially books. Especially the kinds of books regimes might want to ban. When it’s time to rebuild, we’ll need firm ground to stand on, and physical books work as long as you can hold them.
Or DRMless digital. But yeah, they need to coexist with paper ones.
DRMless digital is great - I have a calibre library of thousands - but still more vulnerable.
Canticle of Lebowitz is a great post apocalyptic novel. After the nukes, Catholic monasteries preserve the ancient tradition of copying down manuscripts. Text doesn’t require any form of infrastructure.
There are also many texts/other media that are not available in any digital format. Obscure or older. For as much of an Information Age we are in, a lot of knowledge is being lost through neglect.
The overwhelming majority of my library is actually not digital-native - rather, pdf or djvu scans. I should really contribute to Libgen by scanning some of my library.
I’d also point towards alternative reading apps and hardware and drop everything related to Amazon.
I just buy physicals of the reference books I really want and pirate the digitals of anything else that isn’t sold DRM-free. I WILL own what I bought, whether they like it or not.
I wish I could do the same. I prefer paper books, we have a massive library and mostly read in our language on paper (except uni textbooks, I wouldn’t want to buy them and the library doesn’t have enough). However, that stopped being feasible when most of my non-fiction reading switched to English. Since English books are mostly not sold locally, I would have gone bankrupt on delivery costs alone. So thanks Libgen for my education.
Is there a way to donate to the authors? Because I think pirating and then donating the money (directly) to the author is much more ethical than putting a megacorp or a publisher in between
Even better if you send it with something like Monero which doesn’t even put the bank between you and the author
You mean the authors would actually earn money instead of the “publisher”? How unfair! /s
When mist books were made of paper, the publishers job was quite the deal including printing, delivering, stocks, pulp the rests etc. So they took the lions share of the price together with the bookstore and the author got maybe 10-15% from the final price.
Today it’s just theft.
Imagine: pirating ebooks but donating money to the author at the same time. Win win.
Is that what the “you can’t download your shit anymore” is really reaching at?
Honest question, how is this different from the left doing the same? Take this for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_revision_controversy
As an outsider, it seems the USA is currently in a culture war, and neither side minds burning & changing the books they deem offensive?
I’m all for the Trump hate, what’s happening there is insane, but the American left wing being bothered by books being changed seems pretty hypocritical seeing recent events…
The controversy you pointed out is about someone who was writing factually false information and feeding hate against people who should be covered under the freedom of speech. The ban happened during his life, and not years after he died. Therefore his works were not a peace of gone culture, but hate in the present of time.
If I follow your argumentation, that being that you should allow people write false information feeding hate against specific people just living their life in peace, you should be against censoring Hate speech against Lgbtqia+ people too, or the better question would be: where do you draw the line? At Jews? At queer people?
I have honestly no clue what you’re trying to say???
If you read the wiki page i linked, it’s about changing his books after his death, so not things about when he was still alive? Is also not about a ban? Did you even read the wiki? It literally starts with "Puffin Books, the children’s imprint of the British publisher Penguin Books, expurgated various works by British author Roald Dahl in 2023, sparking controversy. "
And you’re talking about hate against races, but the wiki talks about removing the word queer (which used to just be a synonym for strange), removing all kinds of gendered language (not sons & daughters, but children, etc…). So rewriting the books to fit your narrative.
My argumentation is simple: the right wing can’t change books, but the leftwing can? Both sides seem to be trying to rewrite history, that’s all. Whether what’s in the books is acceptable or not, who cares. If the book is no longer appropriate, don’t read it but complaining about the other side rewriting books seems hypocritical. That’s all. You can just not recommend books to readers and suggest more modern alternatives that are more appropriate, or read the old works taking in mind the era they were written in.
didn’t know JK Rowling is into Lemmy now
Ah yeah, going for the insult rather than engaging with a difficult talking point…
I for sure hate trans people when i say it’s hypocritical to complain about the right wing changing books to fit what they view as correct, when the left wing is doing the exact same (strange… my point isn’t even about trans people it seems… how peculiar).
I haven’t even said that i have a problem with more gender neutral language, i just gave it as en example of what it’s about since the parent post was all about hate speech, (and there was some issue with that too in his childrens books, but afaik hardly any).
And i focused on that because OP made it sound as if just hate speech was being targetted, not rewriting old works to fit very left wing desires about how gender is mentioned.
But the question remains: if the right does it, it’s Nazism, when the left does it, it’s… <???> (at least totally not Nazism, because when we do something that we claim is blatant Nazism when the others do it, it’s ok, because obviously, we’re not Nazis, even when we do things that we call out as blatantly Nazism when others do it).
(and why am i trying to call this out: because i hate hypocrisy & polarization. It’s fair to disagree with that, but then calling it Nazism and being all wronged about it while the American left wing is doing the exact same, and then get’s called out the exact same by de maga idiots… That’s just stupid on both sides, and i’d prefer our side to be genuine and honest, and not be all offended when others do the same thing they’re doing)
I am with you on this one. I do think it would be appropriate to have a disclaimer in the beginning, saying that these words used to have a different meaning, and that in the context of the time they were written they meant different things than today.
There is a German book where this is done that uses the N word for people of color.
This is the more appropriate way of handling this, because i am totally with you: we shouldn’t change what was written in books. If we start doing that, we destroy what authors have done, and in a sense we also edit history, because in this case we try to erase that these words were used in another context back in the days.
Have you, as a foreigner, been caught up by the American political-polarization bugtm!? Here are a few warning signs that you may be affected.
- Do you find yourself often injecting “left-wing” or “right-wing” into titles?
- Do you have a perceived notion that anything negative being said must involve a certain political party?
- Do you feel the need to bring Trump up in a post that has nothing to do with him?
- Do you find yourself in the comments blaming “sides” without having read the article or watched the video?
- Have you found yourself demanding answers or change that’s addressed in the post? (he literally brings up Dahl as his first example)
If you suspect that you or a loved one suffer from this syndrome, please turn off the devices and go outside.
Is there a text version of this?
Yes, I prefer to read over watching a video and being forced to go at someone else’s pace.
I truly hate this age of video where everything is either in incredibly long form with unnecessary cruft that can be pared down to a page or so of real information, or the video is so pointlessly short it’s devoid of real value and context. Sadly people just don’t want to read anymore
The changing the Books part hasn’t been archived in the Catf wiki yet, but the non downloadable books is already fully written
13+ years ago when I’d say why I hate social media, cloud services, all this convenient dependence, everybody would act as if this was stupid.
My logic was that if there’s a mechanism allowing such influence, no matter how small, its power will grow almost until the death of such an ecosystem. Because the returns of abusing it will always be more than the expenses.
I don’t like this Cassandra feeling really.
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At the same time, they unfortunately can’t imagine things being better. That’s why societies differ a lot between cultures in different parts of the world.
Well that and the fact that some of us define better in such ways that others think may be worse. For example there was a trend some years back where Instagram models were damaging Joshua trees, I am of the complete and unshakable opinion that their blood shouldve water a new Joshua tree and their corpse reduced to mulch for said tree. I aint got nothing against whoring oneself out after all money is money but hurting the Joshua trees is a worthy of death.
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Yeah, see, I even have a mental condition which should supposedly make that my problem more than that of most people.
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Not exactly aphantasia, though some kinds of imagination are close to that for me. Rather that something remote is very hard to imagine, while triggers, like sounds and smells and physical feelings and harmonic progressions, make something very easy to imagine.
So if I know that I have to do something or else my head rolls off, the deadline being in 3 hours, I won’t be as concentrated as the typical person.
1984 - Get away from everything GAFAM does
A hosting provider always has the ability to change what’s on their infrastructure. The Kindle store is no different.
As it happens, they’ve been doing this for years. For example, the price you set as an author is not fixed nor is how it turns up on the page or how and when it’s promoted.
The standard ebook format is essentially a zipped up series of text files.
Source: I sell my “Foundations of Amateur Radio” ebooks on the Kindle store
Its just a bitter taste, thinking about how a few companies can lay words into the mouth of people they did not even say, years after they died
I would rather just have them Ban the books, because then you can see how they are manipulating the information you see.
Hell, I’m surprised the publishers aren’t up in arms about it.
Amazon is changing copyrighted works.
Increasingly more often Amazon is the publisher.
Source: I sell my “Foundations of Amateur Radio” ebooks on the Kindle store
And thank you for the reminder that I should go get a license before the entire system is so messed up that it wouldn’t be possible.
Well or it would be irrelevant because no one would care.
Either way!
Does Amazon have permission to change what’s in your book though?
Copyright prevents them from making derivative works and if they change your text without your permission, that’s a clear copyright violation.
I don’t know how licensing deals work with Amazon but I’m guessing if they are doing this en mass, there is probably some provision in their contract.
The bigger question is do they care. At worst they get a slap on the wrist by the US government. At best they get to control the narrative and have books like having history books on their platform talk about how the the Allies first striked Nazi Germany because they were lifting the country out of economic crisis and making the world a better place.
I doubt they’ll care or listen if EU says stop since they’ll just find a way around whatever they have planned to try and stop revisionist ideology from taking hold.
It would be nice if that stuff worked more like git where yeah maybe the release version gets changed but you can always work back through the history to see earlier versions.
Not git specifically but just deltas from one version to the next instead is replacing the whole thing with a flattened text.
Like wiki articles.
Yes, but you say it like the Author himself changed it.
In the specific Example, the book is from before 2000 and the author is long dead. That book is a piece of culture now, displaying the writing style from a place in time where it was normal to discriminate against people. By changing a book, regardless of if it was actually amazon or just some manager that bought up the rights for the book, it is manipulating the Past. Amazon should not allow to do such things
Oh I didn’t think I implied that at all. Certainly didn’t mean to. I was just commenting that making cultural artifacts that can be revised into delta-based distributions instead of flat is useful for many reasons. But it’s no benefit to the corps and most users don’t care so of course it won’t happen.
OK, tanks for clarifying that
Yes, it would be great.
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I paid for (the license to view) the books already, so I’m getting epubs from z-library without the slightest bit of moral pain.
I could do the calibre decryption thing, but meh.
Same boat man. ‘OK I’ll throw a few schmeckles in because the author does need the compensation, but i’m getting the actual book elsewhere.’
If I ever embrace my fate as a lonely housewife book author, I’m going to have a rough time, because the kind of people who would forever love me for producing my books and sharing them as free (with the option to donate) and the kind of people who buy lonely housewife books are two completely different circles and I wouldn’t be able to spend all the time necessary to ‘market’ myself online to get the books in the hands of people who want them, if I’m trying to spend that time writing.
Maybe what we need is an apparatus. A website where authors can share full-size books, users can vote on them, and if you like them enough you can give money to those writers.
I just don’t know how we’d get that, be able to allow any author to share their book, and still have quality control.
So… z-library? https://z-lib.gs
I bought a kobo recently (for the color screen) and have had to keep going back to my kindle to read smutty romance. All their newest decisions made me cancel my KU sub, and this has saved me from what I thought would be a drought.
If you’re into audiobooks, I strongly recommend libro.fm instead - it’s all DRM free downloads, so you never lose access.
And here’s a reminder that if you run a Plex server, there’s an app called Prologue which turns it into a fully fledged audiobook server.
Plex doesn’t natively support things like audiobook bookmarks in m4b files, and tries to just play them straight through like a gigantic 4 hour long music track. But Prologue does support bookmark data. Prologue simply uses Plex’s service to access the files, (because admittedly, Plex is good for letting newbies remotely access their content) and then it ignores Plex’s built-in “lol just play it like music” instructions, and actually parses the files for bookmark data.
As someone who couldn’t get Audiobookshelf to work properly, (something about not being able to access network drives via Docker), Prologue has saved my audiobook library by allowing me to just host it via Plex instead.
Jellyfin supports audio books too, but I feel that audiobookshelf gives a much neater experience.
Yeah, I tired Audiobookshelf and gave up after fighting with it for a day or two. It refused to read or write any data on my NAS, so it couldn’t actually save/load any audiobook files.
At the very least back up your Audible library in a DRM free format with something like Libation.
I am still using Audible because their web player works in my restricted office, and the authors get a couple of pennies from dragon, but have my library safely exported to ensure continued access and prevent fuckery like this.
Anything similar for ebooks?
Calibre-ebook has a content server, simple setup
I meant for buying ebooks w/o DRM.
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Thank you for this! I made an account and may get the membership!
For sure, thanks! https://libro.fm/referral?rf_code=lfm723891
I decided to do the subscription today so you should see at least one referral coming your way. Thanks, again, for the suggestion!
Appreciate it! The last audiobook I picked up from Libro is Kara Swisher’s “Burn Book”. Not sure if it’s your thing, but was totally worth it for understanding more personal context around the big Tech CEOs from the last 25 years.
Always down for a good recommendation. I picked up Black Pill. To start.
Also downpour.com! I ditched Audible a long time back in favor of sites like these that don’t lock authors into crappy exclusives, provide DRM-free audiobooks for sale, and have actually decent deals with authors.
1984 right here.
