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

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill to me; nobody is being forced to use this app who doesn't wish to do so.

It seems to me that the reason it is a treated by some as a mountain is because it is part of the US culture war.

I agree it is a molehill. Not just because few will use the software, but also because the underlying ideas in the books will shine through unaffected.

Moms and Dads who use the app are letting their kids read 99.9 percent or so of the words in books which are likely to be deeply embedded with values contrary to those of the parents. Every time a child reads Huckleberry Finn, they get the same dose of skepticism concerning churches and religion regardless of whether it was Clean Reader'd. But in these kind of symbolic battles over values, victory, apparently, must be absolute.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

As one who is so quick to stress the differences between digital and print, I would think it would be fairly easy for you see that some may not think "this is exactly the same." Mostly because it's NOT the same at all. You can't equate "making your own substitutions for words when reading out loud to your children from a book" with "letting your children read books where words were substituted FOR them by 3rd parties." The first is about controlling what you want your kids to hear, the second is about relinquishing that control to someone else: the someone else who's selling you the books.

As far as I'm concerned, the makers of Clean Reader are distributing three predetermined altered versions of copyrighted works (Clean, Cleaner, Squeaky). Doesn't matter that the original came along for the ride with those predetermined altered versions. Clean Reader decided, in advance, what words would be changed when Billy reads Book X on Setting 1. They decided for Billy and everyone else who reads Book X on Setting 1. Sounds like the distribution of unauthorized versions to me.

It sounds like a third party tool designed to complete a task that would be entirely legal manually. It's not difficult to create find/replace filters, but if someone's willing to pay for yours, I don't see who that hurts.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That there are people out there who believe that books are nothing more than a collection of tropes, and situations, and characters that can be just as effectively conveyed with any-old words baffles me. Baffles me.

The sanctity of the written word is just as baffling. Any piece of literature is just one of many potential ways to tell a single story, with both meaningful and arbitrary choices made throughout the piece. Authors are not gods. Their works are not sacred, and quality is not objective. The only thing that truly exists is communication to foster audience perception and comprehension, and what can be enhanced to further that goal.

People will already stay confined to reading books that subscribe to their beliefs. There's more than enough books in the world to create an echo chamber for anyone. Perhaps with a bit of remixing and redisplaying of the content, people caught in those echo chambers might be willing to take their first step outside.

Originally Posted by Hitch

Do we all agree that an author, completely and without question, has the right to agree to sell or NOT TO SELL abridged, shortened, condensed, etc., versions of his books? Or does s/he not have that right? That if the Chocolat author doesn't want anyone touching any word of her finished works, she has a right to NOT sell the rights to any version thereof? To preserve the books in a "pristine" condition, from the bookseller, at least?

The author can sell whatever they want, in accordance with their publisher and other various agreements made.

The reader has every right to do whatever the heck they want to that book when they buy it, excluding redistributing the work themselves. That includes abridging, shortening, condensing, etc. - even with the use of third party tools such as these.

I don't see repackaging a mobi into an epub as entirely different from the tools discussed here. In the most reductive, it's merely reformatting text to make it more useful to its audience.

EDIT: Noticed a few more things to discuss.

Originally Posted by Hitch

My point here is: anyone, anywhere, anytime, can find things that are "objectionable" in books. I truly find the whole Bella Swan "saga" FAR MORE objectionable, in many ways, than the vast bulk of bad language seen in typical modern fiction. I think it's more dangerous. It OFFENDS my own, personal, deeply-held beliefs. I'll bet that dozens of people who read that "pshaw" that idea. But how come I don't get an app to "fix" what's wrong with that book?

Because it's more difficult to create an app that changes the very structure of the plot and characterization than it is to find/replace bad words.

You have an interesting idea though. Legally it's a gray area, but what if you made an app that allowed people to upload remixes of their changes to a novel? Lord knows I've read enough books that were almost great, but ended poorly or had one or two scenes that just didn't add up. So create an app that allows you to share a package of JUST your changes to a novel, so that I could go download, say, a package from a guy who improves action sequences and makes them easier to follow. Awesome idea.

But considering the reaction to this app, I'm sure most app developers wouldn't touch any book modification with a 20 foot pole. No Twilight non-suckage app for you, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by Hitch

You guys still aren't looking at the bigger picture, as I said. WHERE DOES IT STOP???? Who decides, what bits get changed? What if I make an app (Thank you, Ian Rankin--in your honor, I cruised over to Acorn last night on my Roku and watched Rebus) to kill off Rebus, for reality?

Sure...in a print book, you can go through and line out whatever you want. You can mark it up, tear out pages, burn it to keep you warm for 30 seconds. But what you're NOT doing, is doing that, for pay, for a third-party. You're only doing it for yourself.

To me...they're not QUITE the same. (And don't tell me that the Clean Reader "parents" weren't looking to make a buck!).

I see it as an apartment re-decorator. A third party does the work for me. Assuming I like what they generally do, I can keep coming to them for their changes. If I don't, they don't get my business. Nothing stops me from going elsewhere.

This is a whole lot of hoo-hah for an app nobody is forced to use and exists in a very small market niche. Who decides what bits get changed? As ever, it's you. You control what you read, what apps you use, and how your experience is dictated. Call me when that changes and we'll talk.

[eschwartz]

hardcastle -- you seem to be completely missing the point.

The app includes an integrated bookstore, thus lending a veneer of authority to the modifications.
Authors are pissed as hell.
The app no longer includes an integrated bookstore. People are still free to sideload their books to this reader app, and proceed to do whatever damn stupid things they want, because that (stupidity) is a fundamental right.
Most of the people who were upset are more or less happy.
Some people are still harping on about an author's moral right to forbid you to draw on your pbook with sharpies -- ebooks being "licenses" gives them the opportunity to justify their beliefs.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

The sanctity of the written word is just as baffling. Any piece of literature is just one of many potential ways to tell a single story, with both meaningful and arbitrary choices made throughout the piece.

That you believe literature and telling a story are the same thing tells me everything I need to know. Don't misunderstand; I'm not getting snooty about Litra-chur. I like getting told a story as much as the next person. I quite often read for story alone. But sometimes, I want a story told by someone whose word-choices and prose (and yes sometimes profanity) actually contributes something to the experience other than story comprehension alone.

Originally Posted by hardcastle

Authors are not gods. Their works are not sacred, and quality is not objective.

Never said (or thought) they were. I simply believe that their works are their works--including the words used.

Originally Posted by hardcastle

The reader has every right to do whatever the heck they want to that book when they buy it, excluding redistributing the work themselves.

Agreed. One problem, though ... we can talk semantics all we want but when it boils down to legalities, it's at least arguable that the users of Clean Reader didn't buy a book.

But as eschwartz mentioned: with the integrated, alterable ebook store gone... so go my complaints (the legal ones). The users of the Clean Reader app have my blessing to do whatever they want with their purchases (now that the onus to actually alter someone else's work has been properly shifted back to the end-user where it always belonged).

[murg]

The kids are smarter than the parents. This has always been true.

I remember when I was in school and we passed around the page numbers of the 'dirty' content of some of the books they didn't want us to read, so we could skip all the boring stuff.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Rbneader

It amuses me that people who claim to be supporting 'choice' are exerting so much pressure to stop people from using this app.

And some people think that the appropriate way to handle kid's reading material is to read everything before the kid gets to it?

Aside from being fundamentally impossible, how do you think kids react to parents who taking their library books before letting the kid have them? It just teaches kids to hide from and distrust their parents....that's a horrible idea and not something any good parent would do. This app is much better than that.

It's also a great idea for adult readers who don't like cursing. Yes, it's just words, but they're specific words (mis)used in specific ways to try and shock emotional reactions out of readers. And they're in so many books now. It's really irritating to pick up something else that looked good, just to discover that it's full of cursing. I've been looking for something to quickly check or filter books for a long time.

We are talking eBooks here. So what the parents can do is make a list of words they feel is inappropriate, search the eBooks for these words and see how often they show up and how they are used. That would be a way for the parents to screen the books without having to actually read them first.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Rbneader

It's not the free market.

Letting the market decide = seeing how many people use the app and letting it rise or fall by purchasing decisions. The current controversy is a group of people exerting social and political pressure to shame people who disagree with them and limit choice.

As for authorial rights, authors do not have the right to control readers' behavior so long as no distribution is taking place.

Books were sold unedited, and the app then applied filters the reader chose. This is absolutely acceptable for personal property. Distributing edits would break copyright law, but editing things for personal use does not.

The authors do have the right to say they do not want their books sold via the app. Because enough authors said no, all the books were pulled. That is a free market to not sell where you don't want to be sold.

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The app includes an integrated bookstore, thus lending a veneer of authority to the modifications.
Authors are pissed as hell.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Agreed. One problem, though ... we can talk semantics all we want but when it boils down to legalities, it's at least arguable that the users of Clean Reader didn't buy a book.

But as eschwartz mentioned: with the integrated, alterable ebook store gone... so go my complaints (the legal ones). The users of the Clean Reader app have my blessing to do whatever they want with their purchases (now that the onus to actually alter someone else's work has been properly shifted back to the end-user where it always belonged).

Fair enough. I concede this point.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That you believe literature and telling a story are the same thing tells me everything I need to know. Don't misunderstand; I'm not getting snooty about Litra-chur. I like getting told a story as much as the next person. I quite often read for story alone. But sometimes, I want a story told by someone whose word-choices and prose (and yes sometimes profanity) actually contributes something to the experience other than story comprehension alone.

I'm not just talking about story. The same idea could be applied to literary themes, to beautiful writing and prose, characterization and anything else we enjoy about books.

Even literary meaning, communicated through prose, is not always something that can't be touched. The ways in which those themes can be communicated, the themes themselves, and where they're taken mentally - these are all things that can be changed, in ways that some people might gel to better and others may not.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Never said (or thought) they were. I simply believe that their works are their works--including the words used.

From a legal standpoint, sure, but past that? I don't agree. I think endless modification, remixing and interpretation of our culture is the only way we can truly connect to it. Can you take apart the prose of a classic work and reassemble it into something that speaks to you? The classic never left. It's not an act of destruction, it's an act of creation. There are infinite possibilities, and it's hubris to think that any single idea - no matter how complex - belongs to us in any sense.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Try having the following conversation with a 6 year old:

Child: "Why is fuck a bad word?"
Adult: "Because it talks about having sex."
Child: "What is sex?"
Adult: "That is how babies are made."
Child: "Why is making babies bad?"

Of course, the conversation with a 12 year old would be quite different. They would understand what you're talking about, but be uncomfortable with it for all of the wrong reasons. With a 16 year old, the conversation would be different yet again.

The point is that the child must be prepared to "face the realities of the world" when they are explained to the child. The conversation will depend upon the word in question as well as the social and intellectual development of the child. For some children, and some words, this will be quite early on. For other children, and the adults involved, this will be at a later stage.

I was never uncomfortable with these so-called curse words. I never once went to my parents and ask about them. I was a young reader. I did read a lot. I don't remember when I started reading books that had these words in them.

I feel sometimes the themes of the books can be more important than these words. The problem is this app only handles these words. It doesn't handle the book that these words are in. You can describe things that are unsuitable for children in a way that this app won't change a single word. Parents should take an active part in what there kids read. Kids could be reading much more than just certain words that are inappropriate.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

I'm not just talking about story. The same idea could be applied to literary themes, to beautiful writing and prose, characterization and anything else we enjoy about books.

Even literary meaning, communicated through prose, is not always something that can't be touched. The ways in which those themes can be communicated, the themes themselves, and where they're taken mentally - these are all things that can be changed, in ways that some people might gel to better and others may not.



From a legal standpoint, sure, but past that? I don't agree. I think endless modification, remixing and interpretation of our culture is the only way we can truly connect to it. Can you take apart the prose of a classic work and reassemble it into something that speaks to you? The classic never left. It's not an act of destruction, it's an act of creation. There are infinite possibilities, and it's hubris to think that any single idea - no matter how complex - belongs to us in any sense.

Well, I am pretty sure DiapDealer only meant theirs in a legal sense.

I will point out that modification and remixing is a wonderful thing that manifests through the concept of the Public Domain... which does no give people the right to credit those modifications to the original author.

As far as I am concerned, it is libel to release a bowdlerized text without marking it as a derivative work. And derivative works are only legal re: the Public Domain.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Heck, parents have always had the right to raise their kids however they like, within certain relatively new, and lenient, boundaries like no beating the hell out of them.

We have lots of parents doing stupid and dangerous things in the name of their right to raise their kids as they see fit. Currently the most dangerously stupid things parents are doing is not vaccinating they children. That can cause harm to their children and the children of other parents.

So in that case, I don't believe parents should have the right to put other kids at risk just because they believe some stupid lies.

I know it won't hurt other kids, but I also don't believe in the right of parents to seek out alternate forms af medical treatment when their kids have a serious illness. That (IMHO) is abuse.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nobody needs to "authorise" it. If you're reading a book out loud to your children, you don't need the author's permission to alter words that you feel would be unsuitable for them. This is exactly the same. Seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill to me; nobody is being forced to use this app who doesn't wish to do so.

When a parent is reading a book to his/her child and making the edits as the book is being read, that's OK. That's the parent taking an interest in the child's reading. That's the parent making the choice which words are changed and into what. That's not some app changing words. The way the app does it, the child is going to want to know what the words are that they aren't being shown. The way I look at it is that if a child isn't ready for such words, then the child isn't read for that book full stop. Help the child pick out a book that he/she is ready for.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

We have lots of parents doing stupid and dangerous things in the name of their right to raise their kids as they see fit. Currently the most dangerously stupid things parents are doing is not vaccinating they children. That can cause harm to their children and the children of other parents.

So in that case, I don't believe parents should have the right to put other kids at risk just because they believe some stupid lies.

I know it won't hurt other kids, but I also don't believe in the right of parents to seek out alternate forms af medical treatment when their kids have a serious illness. That (IMHO) is abuse.

And yet... it remains the law. Thus, it remains legal to "inflict" this app on your children as well.
Parents have that right.

You are of course welcome to change the law, which if successful will criminalize the above medical-related abuse as well as this app.


And that really is the only point I am trying to make. Barring the no-longer-problematic violation of author integrity, this is nothing but a tool that can be utilized to inflict harm on your own books, to the same extent that you can currently modify pbooks. All totally legal and aboveboard, if rather silly/ridiculous/repugnant/morally bankrupt/what-have-you.

Further discussion can be addressed to Child Protective Services, who may or may not consider this a problem (particularly in the Bible Belt)... but it certainly isn't a problem with the app per se.

Because it is now at the point where it is Just One More Example of things-adults-do-to-raise-their-kids-which-are-considered-objectionable-by-some.

[montalex]

Hey, just get the Reader's Digest condensed version -- like having an app to dumb down the great books. If a character exclaims "fuck!", he/she does not mean "fudge".

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes--which, as a parent, was your rightful choice to make. You made it in context, and as a part of the discussion--not as an absentee landlord letting an app make the decision for you, to alleviate you of the responsibility. That's my gripe.

I don't quite get your point. If the parent chooses this tool to help him with parenting, how does it harm anyone? And isn't this act of choosing this software showing his responsibility?

I use openDNS Family Filtering on our Internet. Does this mean I'm an "absentee landlord?" Or does it mean that I'm using a tool to help keep filth out of my house? The tool doesn't take my place, it just helps me to do my job as a parent.