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Originally Posted by Hitch
But as I pointed out, as well, authors and publishers ALSO have particular visions for their works, and perhaps we've come to the question of: who gets to decide?
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I think you're right that this is the key question. I'm going to be boringly predictable and say it's not a simple case of one or the other.
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Is it the artist's right to do whatever she wants, and you take it or leave it,
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Yes every artist has that right.
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or is every artist obligated to make his or her work, in whatever medium, fungible so that you (generically, not personally) can customize it to suit whatever you want?
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Obligated? Absolutely not. But equally there's no obligation for anyone to read that book and there are plenty of others available. So there's probably a decision there to be made about purity of the artistic vision versus it actually getting read. Art and commerce meet once again.
Both sides have their "rights". I neither think that the author/publisher has to concede their design goals, nor do I think the reader has to concede their requirements. It's just that neither can demand acquiescence of the other.