[Web4lib] RE: Amazon Deletes Orwell from Kindles (UNCLASSIFIED)

Tue Jul 21 15:57:14 EDT 2009

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED 
Caveats: NONE

Ah, book revisions. Read
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/opinion/20hotchner.html?em  about a
'new edition' of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, 'edited' by a Hemingway
scion. Fascinating stuff.

Holly Hill
holly.k.hill at us.army.mil
Barr Memorial Library; Directorate of Family, Morale, Welfare, and
Recreation
Fort Knox, KY     502-624-5351 

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Sharon Foster
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 2:28 PM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [AKO Warning - Message fails DKIM verification] Re: [Web4lib]
RE: Amazon Deletes Orwell from Kindles

Making them all vanish would at least be noticeable. Changing a few
words here and there---then we're getting into Winston Smith territory.

Sharon M. Foster, JD, MLS
Librarians bring order out of chaos.
http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/

On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Tim Spalding<tim at librarything.com>
wrote:
> Yes, the point isn't that they were legal-they were only legal in some

> countries, not in others-the point is that buying a book that contains

> a copyright violation does not, in the real world, entitle the 
> bookseller to enter your house and repossess the book, let alone take 
> and destroy the notes you took about the book.
>
> So, with respect, the problem isn't fact checking. The problem is the
facts.
>
> The danger is that capabilities like this end up eroding our 
> expectations of book privacy. That expectation is a cultural thing, 
> built up over centuries and central to, well, western culture. It 
> doesn't extend past books as easily: Apple has used, a similar "kill 
> switch" on a number of apps it didn't like; but people don't have 
> quite the same expectations for an iPhone app., so the fuss was more 
> muted. If we let that sort of attitude take hold here, we may well 
> wake up in a world where where our books change and even vanish 
> without a trace, for any number of reasons.
>
> The ability to delete something at any time, and to go after the 
> reader, rather than the author and publisher, are new. Consider the US

> justice system's strong bias against preliminary injunctions on 
> documents that end up being clear violations of one law or another.
> Publishers and authors are responsible, but nobody destroys books 
> until the case is decided, and nobody goes out and collects all the 
> violating copies from innocent readers either. So, for example, when 
> Daniel Elsberg was indicted for leaking the Pentagon Papers, nobody 
> worried all the copies out there would suddenly vanish.
>
> Tim
>
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 1:18 PM, Amy Rogers<rogers.a at comcast.net>
wrote:
>> For what it is worth, I came across this item the other day. Seemed 
>> that if some fact checking were done, there would not have been an
outrage.
>>
>> "The two books in question were published for the Kindle by a company

>> called Mobile Reference, which offers public domain books for around 
>> $1. Mobile Reference did not have the right to sell Orwell's novels 
>> because 1984 and Animal Farm are still under copyright protection in 
>> the United States. They were not legitimate or "perfectly legal" 
>> copies of the books, but rather illicit copies that should not have
been sold in the first place.
>> "Contrary to what the New York Times reported, the publisher did not 
>> change its mind, nor did Amazon cave to pressure. Rather, Amazon was 
>> notified that copyrighted material was being sold on the Amazon store

>> without permission and it removed said material."
>>
>> More at http://bit.ly/hQDZQ
>>
>> "Media goes crazy over Amazon deleting '1984' from Kindle, but 
>> 99-cent ebook was illegal copy"
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Web4lib mailing list
>> Web4lib at webjunction.org
>> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Check out my library at 
> http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>

_______________________________________________
Web4lib mailing list
Web4lib at webjunction.org
http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED 
Caveats: NONE