Books without swear words - there's an app for that

[DiapDealer]

The right to "skip" copryrighted content you don't like when reading is inviolate. You don't need permission to do that.

I have no idea if this app combined with their special versions (is it a new proprietary DRM scheme that makes it possible?) of ebooks constitutes copyright infringement or not, but I know I want it to be deemed so. After all, they're essentially distributing copies of books containing identical unauthorized changes. Those people with the same "level of cleaness" selected would see the exact same altered versions, right? They (the reader) didn't sit down and alter a book for their own personal use ...they let someone else (an algorithm designed by the company that owns Clean Reader) alter it for them (regardless of when or where the alteration happens).

I don't think there'd be any legal questions at all if this app simply Xed out or redacted a user-provided list of "bad" words. To me, that would be the equvalent of a reader "skipping" the stuff they don't like (I'd still find it silly, however). But allowing company X to exchange words (in their specially prepared ebook products) that THEY deem objectionable (only the degree of objectionability seems to be user configurable) with words that THEY deem to be "cleaner" is where things get legally muddy IMO. Again ... I don't personally think when the alterations happen (or who actually pushes the big red Go button that triggers the changes) has much bearing on who made the decisions as to what word gets changed into what in the first place. Clean Reader did.

[eschwartz]

I agree it wouldn't be a problem really for them to xxxxxx out stuff they don't want you to see. At least it is evident what happened. I don't like the idea that you can (must, in fact) buy books through the app, and those books get modified -- it seems to imply that such changes are in fact the will of the author.

Likewise, I accept that anyone can delete, redact, or modify any damn words they like, themselves, on a DeDRMed EPUB. They will know exactly where those modifications come from, and it isn't the author. Also, you could always do that with pbooks.
If this app were just a reader app, that allowed one to sideload books and have them cleaned (for a given value of clean), again I wouldn't really have a problem with it. It is no different from doing it yourself, except that you enlisted someone else's help.

That being said, it may not be illegal (false representation of the author), but I will, regardless, always think it immoral and mentally unsound... but that is just an opinion, after all.

Having this app as an integrated vendor experience seems rather shaky, legally speaking -- although I am no expert. I certainly hope so, anyway.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

Why is that? If I love mysteries, but don't care for excessive gore, I should just limit myself to cozy mysteries instead of reading an enjoyable book and skip over a few pages I don't enjoy?

Some people like to read popular books, but skip over the sex scenes. Some people like to read popular books, but skip over the really scary parts. Some people like to read popular books, but skip over the technical science explanations. Some people like to read popular books, but would prefer to skip over the profanity.

Skipping over a portion of the book is completely different from changing the text of a certain portion.

Shari

[JSWolf]

The way to handle this is to have the app scan for the possibly offensive words so the the parents can see what's in the book before the child reads it. Then if the parents don't feel it's appropriate, then they can just not allow their child to read the book until they are older and/or more mature. That's a much better solution then to bastardize the book. It could change the meaning and as pointed out by Joanne Harris...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cele...in-novels.html
http://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/pos...m-clean-reader

3. Pedagogical. If, as you suggest, this app is partly designed for young readers, then I believe the toxic message it carries (that body parts are shameful and must not be mentioned by name; that sex is dirty and shameful) is likely to be extremely harmful to impressionable young people, and may result in serious psychological damage, with all the social consequences that may entail.

[JSWolf]

Charles Stross calls this an exercise in futility.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...-futility.html

Mangling an author's text is a clear violation of the author's Moral rights, an element of copyright which is very weak in the United States and very strong elsewhere (primarily in civil law jurisdictions). (The moral right is the right of an author to be identified as the creator of a work, and for the work represented as their creation to be unaltered by other hands, so that the relationship between creator and created work is clear.) Mangling an author's text may be legal or illegal in the USA, depending on whether it occurs before or after sale. After all, I can't stop you buying one of my books and editing it with a sharpie: it's a physical object and according to the first sale doctrine, it's yours to do with as you wish. I may be able to legally stop you modifying an ebook, though: ebooks are not sold but a limited license to download and use them is granted in exchange for money—a fine legal distinction that was borrowed from the software business's tame sharks—and that limited license may permit or deny such usage.

Another very good blog post on Clean Reader is from Lilith Saintcrow.

http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/on-cleanreader/

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Charles Stross calls this an exercise in futility.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...-futility.html

Hmm... I think something along the lines of "atrocity" would have had a nicer ring to it coming from him.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The way to handle this is to have the app scan for the possibly offensive words so the the parents can see what's in the book before the child reads it. Then if the parents don't feel it's appropriate, then they can just not allow their child to read the book until they are older and/or more mature. That's a much better solution then to bastardize the book. It could change the meaning and as pointed out by Joanne Harris...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cele...in-novels.html
http://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/pos...m-clean-reader

I find myself shocked to say, in this, I concur with Wolfie. Now, THAT makes sense--a "pre-screening" app, so that parents can see and assess and discuss the possibly-objectionable content with their kids (or whatever). I mean...I don't love the idea, stem-to-stern, but I do realize that parents may be somewhat overburdened these days with all the content. I can't find a single objection to this idea, not in my head, anyway.

My sole complaint is about the fact that "someone else," e.g., CleanReader, DECIDES what is objectionable, and DECIDES what to replace the content WITH. Who the hell knows what contextually, they are doing to the work? And, not to be all OCD or whatever, but shouldn't parents KNOW and be familiar with what their kids are reading?

Hell, we ALL skim certain things. I know I skimmed the mountain-traversing stuff in Eiger Sanction. I skimmed his detailed spelunking bits in Shibumi. These are two that come immediately to mind. And I've been known to blow right past what I consider to be ridiculously overdone sex scenes in books, just because I find them boring or worse, they start to make me laugh--which usually isn't the writer's intent. (Nothing worse than trying to read the description of a three-way from an author who has OBVIOUSLY never done one!!).

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

I hear the algorithm's not all that sophisticated. It'll mangle things like spotted dick, but allow unclef***er to slide through unscathed. How fun is that?

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I hear the alhorithm's not all that sophisticated. It'll mangle things like spotted dick, but allow unclef***er to slide through unscathed. How fun is that?

Y'know, really, the biggest issue is...it IS the slippery slope, isn't it? (And, FWIW, I, like at least two of the responding authors, don't believe that story as to how the app came to be, not for a moment.) I mean, okay, you don't want your kid to hear the F word, so you blank it out. What about consensual sex between unmarried adults? Will that scene be "blanked" out, or worse, replaced by some scene where the bed has a bundling board down the middle? Will a hot romance be replaced with a tepid married bit?

I mean, crap, *I* find the blankness and non-existence and irrelevance of the Twilight main character OFFENSIVE. That she has no worth, no value, no friends, no hobbies, no interests, no nuttin', until two "alpha males" want her. Oh, THEN she's valuable.

Where's MY APP? Where's the app that makes her a strong, independent female, that has an actual life, who doesn't feel the need to be married when she's 16, knocked up instantly, and throwing her entire life away on some pedo vamp? (Seriously? Who the hell could be hundreds of years old and be interested in a 16-y.o. for more than a romp? C'mon, didn't he learn the art of conversation in decades of high school?). Where's the one that makes her class valedictorian, Honor student, member of the school newspaper? Where's the one where she tells the vamp to drop dead, so to speak?

For that matter, where's the one for all those team other-guy people out there? The ones that wanted the other supe dude to get her? Aren't they OFFENDED that Edward was the "winner?"

You get my point. I'm not kidding when I say I find the whole Bella Swan character utterly offensive. Why is my "offended" so much less REAL than some parent in bohunk who finds the F word offensive? What about all the OTHER things that people can get their noses bent about? Homosexuality? Lack of homosexuality? (Where's the app that turns Edward and whoseiwhatsis into girls, or the one that turns Bella into Bill????). Where's the one that means I don't have to have a brain aneurysm about bad writing, while we're at it? The auto-editor, so I am not tortured?????

Y'all aren't given this enough thought. You really aren't. Where does the "offensive content filter" stop?

Hitch

[murg]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I find myself shocked to say, in this, I concur with Wolfie.

Clearly this is a sign that the Apocalypse is nigh.

And an example of why this app is so evil...

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by murg

Clearly this is a sign that the Apocalypse is nigh.

And an example of why this app is so evil...

I have my Pale Horse parked outside.

Hitch

[JSWolf]

Due to the outcry against this app, all of the eBooks from their database have been pulled. So now the app is pretty much useless.

[cromag]

Some additional info from a report on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...edited-writers

[Lynx-lynx]

How long had the app been operational?

[meeera]

I still just plain think it's hilarious that anyone could think that this 'cleans up' reading. Even fairy tales would be affected: "The servant handed the girl the spindle ... and she groined herself with it and, with a sigh, dropped to the floor. " [...] "His grandfather had told him that many princes had tried to penetrate the hedge, but that they had gotten stuck in the thorns and had been groined to death."