Amazon censorship

[johnnyb]

Kali Yuga, why arebyou so vehemently and deliberately trying to confuse description (what I'm doing) and judgement (what you attribute to my comments in your reply)...
I have stated my opinion on the issue itself only briefly in a note to my second post, please tell me, in what way does this brief comment seemingly provide you with the cue to read my whole statement as n attack on Amzon? I'm not that much of an attacker, I was only stating the fact that I simply find it stupid that one cannot speak of censorship when it's just what Amazon is doing (irrespective of their motivation)...

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by JasonB

@devilsadvocate and CleverClothe - The factual act of censorship itself has no value judgement. Either something has been censored or it hasn't. (I suppose whether something specific has or hasn't been could be up for debate.) The reasoning / intention behind the censorship can be arguably bad or good - or "not applicable" if you believe that such a thing as unintentional censorship can exist.

"After all, it's only censorship if we disagree with it, right?" No, I wouldn't say that. A lot of people think that censoring some things is a good thing, and agree with it. They don't believe that then means that there was no censorship.

This is exactly my point. There are some people here that have a knee-jerk reaction to the word "censorship". They think it is hysteria, or only applies to the government, or even start thinking of legal arguments.

There is a lot more to society than just the law. We should not be afraid to discuss it.

[elcreative]

Where is the thread "censored" and how is it censorship when posting on this forum is subject to certain rules and conditions... breaches of these can result in deletion of the material... not censorship, breaking rules you agreed to by using the forum...

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Arguably, this thread has been censored at least once. I am now referring to its censorship. Clearly this wasn't carried out at the behest of any government. Perhaps you don't think this example is common usage, but hopefully you'll agree that censorship is not as categoric as some seem to believe.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Kali Yuga, why arebyou so vehemently and deliberately trying to confuse description (what I'm doing) and judgement (what you attribute to my comments in your reply)...

I'm not confusing anything.

I'm disagreeing with your descriptions, and I don't think they are accurate.

For example, you assert that retailers are the generators and enforcers of public morality. I disagree, and view them as reflections of public morality, and are often subject to public morality.

Originally Posted by johnnyb

in what way does this brief comment seemingly provide you with the cue to read my whole statement as n attack on Amzon?

I don't think you are judging or attacking Amazon per se. Rather, I am attempting to identify problems and disagreements with your interpretation of the situation.

To wit: I view this as an instance of "editing" rather than "censorship."

Nor do I view Amazon's actions as "undemocratic."

I also believe that if we follow your premises to their logical conclusions, the society would violate the rights of retailers and stand the basic concept of "free expression" on its head.

Feel free to request further clarifications.

[elcreative]

Kali Yuga, I think that you're making a fundamental mistake often made on Forums, to whit, that people are reading what you've written rather than the far more likely, reading what they "think" you've written and then responding to that...

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I'm not confusing anything.

I'm disagreeing with your descriptions, and I don't think they are accurate.

For example, you assert that retailers are the generators and enforcers of public morality. I disagree, and view them as reflections of public morality, and are often subject to public morality.



I don't think you are judging or attacking Amazon per se. Rather, I am attempting to identify problems and disagreements with your interpretation of the situation.

To wit: I view this as an instance of "editing" rather than "censorship."

Nor do I view Amazon's actions as "undemocratic."

I also believe that if we follow your premises to their logical conclusions, the society would violate the rights of retailers and stand the basic concept of "free expression" on its head.

Feel free to request further clarifications.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

No, the thread has been edited and/or moderated. ... Not every single act of limiting or even restricting speech qualifies as "censorship."

In fact, the thread was censured. However, in order for it for it to have been censured, it would first have had to be censored, because censor means to examine something officially, such as a book, film, etc and suppress unacceptable parts of it. In this case, the official was a moderator, not a government official.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Actually, a better alternative might be to buy a device that reads ePub and to buy only books in ePub format. If Sony stops selling books, its ebooks will still be readable -- without DRM stripping -- on numerous other devices;

Only for as long as the Adobe authorisation servers are around to authorise new readers, surely?
So you are simply betting who you think we be around longer, Adobe or Amazon.

[elcreative]

Seriously... censured as in "Oooh what a naughty thread... don't do that!" you've made my day even though I seem to disagree with most of what you say...

Originally Posted by boxcorner

In fact, the thread was censured. (cut)

[screwballl]

I doubt either Amazon or Adobe will disappear anytime soon... but I do think that the DRM features of both companies WILL disappear for the most part in the next few years as a better and more open/usable ebook format will take hold within the next few years... just as mp3 took the music industry. It may be epub, it may be mobi, it may be some barely known format, no way to know for sure yet.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Seriously... censured as in "Oooh what a naughty thread... don't do that!" ...

Yes, as in expressing severe disapproval of someone, or something. So, perhaps Amazon censured her work and I am suggesting that in order to have done so they must first have censored it (ie examined it officially), assuming of course that there wasn't some other reason for its withdrawal, such as breach of contract.

Addendum
I'm pleased that you agree with some of what I say.

[lene1949]

How do people 'stumble' upon these books, which should not be published or at least banned from public availability?

I use a lot of time on Amazon, searching for books and reading reviews... I have never seen any of the books in question..

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong genre???

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Only for as long as the Adobe authorisation servers are around to authorise new readers, surely?
So you are simply betting who you think we be around longer, Adobe or Amazon.

No, I'm betting that the Adobe DRM will be easier to strip than the Amazon DRM. Remember that the DRM is another layer on top of the format and that ePub is in wider use around the world than Amazon's proprietary formatting.

Even if Adobe should disappear, because of the worldwide use of ePub, I expect that someone else would pickup the DRM keys that Adobe abandoned. I suspect that would not be possible with Amazon. Amazon is too much like Apple.

[Selena Kitt]

Originally Posted by david_e

I have very much enjoyed the discussion this issue has created but would like to ask about the personal responsibility of the author? I read the authors blog several times to make sure I understood what she was saying and each time I came away with the impression that she never consulted the Content Guidelines until after her work was removed.

How can you complain about being held to the terms of a contract that you agreed to but apparently never bothered to read? If you find terms of an agreement "so vague as to be useless" wouldn't you want to clarify the vagueness before consenting to do business?

Now back to the Nazis, Communist plots, and the evil corporate empire...

Of course I read it. I'm a publisher as well as an author. And as to their "content guidelines" - as I stated in my blog - they were so vague as to be useless. The only way to discern what Amazon would not accept was to look at what they already published. Were there other erotic incest books on their virtual shelves when I published mine? Yep. Lots of them. Did they leave my erotic incest material on their virtual shelves for over a year before pulling them? Yep. So my books were published alongside other similar material and were not rejected outright or removed.

Until now.

And even then, no explanation from Amazon as to why, nor any clearer guidelines.

Whatever you might think about the subject matter in question, any reasonable person would conclude that Amazon has acted, certainly within their rights, considering the CYA language they've used in their so-called "guidelines" - but without much in the way of business ethics or consumer responsibility.

BTW, loves incest erotica. Just got a big order from the North Pole...

[DiapDealer]

No, I'm betting that the Adobe DRM will be easier to strip than the Amazon DRM. Remember that the DRM is another layer on top of the format and that ePub is in wider use around the world than Amazon's proprietary formatting.

Actually... they're both pretty similar - with regard to 'ease' of stripping if either company were to 'disappear.'

Both use components found in the reader application combined with tokens from the ebook itself to generate a PID. As long as you have the proper ebook backed up (and a functioning reader app), both Adobe and Amazon could fade into oblivion, and your ability to strip the drm from your previous purchases would be just as 'easy' as it always was.

Neither process requires a functioning DRM server you need to connect to in order to 'do the deed'.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Neither process requires a functioning DRM server you need to connect to in order to 'do the deed'.

But presumably it would be relatively easy to add one if they wanted to? I don't know about Kindles, but Adobe's app needs to register any new device you want to read them on. Is that just done locally?