Amazon censorship

[elcreative]

What firestorm... the number of contributors on this thread wouldn't even be noticed even if they were all customers and all stopped dealing with Amazon in protest... this very much a damp squib by the hardcore protestors and the occasional person trying to interject a little common sense or otherwise be amused...

[John K]

Originally Posted by elcreative

What firestorm... the number of contributors on this thread wouldn't even be noticed even if they were all customers and all stopped dealing with Amazon in protest... this very much a damp squib by the hardcore protestors and the occasional person trying to interject a little common sense or otherwise be amused...

This is not the only place it's being discused.

[Xanthe]

The title of this thread is false advertising. It is not a censorship issue since there is no government involvement. Amazon made a business decision.

I'm frankly tired of people trying to create a holy crusade and immediately chanting "Farenheit 451" when some author gets called on peddling a sexual perversion (defined as one of the few sexual taboos remaining in our society) disguised as literature, and a decision is made by a bookseller to end their business arrangement.

You buy digital material online, you download it and you archive it to a secondary location or burn it to disc. No one can take anything away from you that way unless they physically walk into your home with a warrant.

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

The title of this thread is false advertising. It is not a censorship issue since there is no government involvement. Amazon made a business decision.

Censorship does NOT equal or require government intervention. This has already been covered... try going back a few pages of this thread, thanks!

[RW2112]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

You buy digital material online, you download it and you archive it to a secondary location or burn it to disc. No one can take anything away from you that way unless they physically walk into your home with a warrant.

There you go, problem solved!

[elcreative]

Amazon must be shaking in their boots...

Originally Posted by John K

This is not the only place it's being discused.

[dacattt]

There you go, problem solved!

That doesn't solve it in the long run. Their books are DRMed to a specific device and a specific computer. In a few years you will have upgraded both. Having that backup, without doing something classified illegal, you still loose what you purchased.

So, all that backing up does, is delay the time in which Amazon does just take your book away that you have paid for. You loose either way, and retroactively they are taking the book from you because they changed their minds after your purchase.

Bet they won't give you a refund a few years down the road when you can't transfer the book/s they "banned" to your new devices. In a few years, are you going to be able to find that same book at some small e-book store. Less likely. Net result, the censoring wins, you're without your book.

If the line moves, as others have suggested above, and Amazon becomes something like the evil Wallymart empire, and now the line restricts books based on religion and/or politics and/or anything a loud group determines isn't proper for you to read.... you still loose your books.... and your money... without crossing that line of civil disability and stripping the locks.

Such a way to run a company!

But it doesn't matter if you don't care what someone else does with your reading material.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by dacattt

That doesn't solve it in the long run. Their books are DRMed to a specific device and a specific computer. In a few years you will have upgraded both. Having that backup, without doing something classified illegal, you still loose what you purchased.

So, all that backing up does, is delay the time in which Amazon does just take your book away that you have paid for. You loose either way, and retroactively they are taking the book from you because they changed their minds after your purchase.

Bet they won't give you a refund a few years down the road when you can't transfer the book/s they "banned" to your new devices. In a few years, are you going to be able to find that same book at some small e-book store. Less likely. Net result, the censoring wins, you're without your book.

If the line moves, as others have suggested above, and Amazon becomes something like the evil Wallymart empire, and now the line restricts books based on religion and/or politics and/or anything a loud group determines isn't proper for you to read.... you still loose your books.... and your money... without crossing that line of civil disability and stripping the locks.

Such a way to run a company!

But it doesn't matter if you don't care what someone else does with your reading material.

Oh, come on, this has nothing to do with perceived censorship but with DRM--you'd lose ALL your books in this scenario, not just the "censored" ones.

[elcreative]

Now you're onto a different discussion/argument, that of DRM and formats which is one of the reasons that I (and many others here) won't buy eBooks from Amazon...

Originally Posted by dacattt

That doesn't solve it in the long run. Their books are DRMed to a specific device and a specific computer. In a few years you will have upgraded both. Having that backup, without doing something classified illegal, you still loose what you purchased.

So, all that backing up does, is delay the time in which Amazon does just take your book away that you have paid for. You loose either way, and retroactively they are taking the book from you because they changed their minds after your purchase.

Bet they won't give you a refund a few years down the road when you can't transfer the book/s they "banned" to your new devices. In a few years, are you going to be able to find that same book at some small e-book store. Less likely. Net result, the censoring wins, you're without your book.

If the line moves, as others have suggested above, and Amazon becomes something like the evil Wallymart empire, and now the line restricts books based on religion and/or politics and/or anything a loud group determines isn't proper for you to read.... you still loose your books.... and your money... without crossing that line of civil disability and stripping the locks.

Such a way to run a company!

But it doesn't matter if you don't care what someone else does with your reading material.

[RW2112]

Agree with the two previous posts. In the context of the Amazon incident, the best choice for insuring access to your books (for the current device) is backing up the books in questions and using off-line storage.

As for future access (possibly on another device/devices) then it is DRM that rears it's ugly head. That is another matter entirely.

[dacattt]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Oh, come on, this has nothing to do with perceived censorship but with DRM--you'd lose ALL your books in this scenario, not just the "censored" ones.

Yes, de-DRMing does handle the issue... but lets stay within legality for a moment...

I'm talking more practical. Maybe Amazon is so big that they really do keep their promise and in 10-20 years you're still upgrading and they're "allowing" you to upgrade so most of your purchased books are still yours. If you do follow the straight-and-narrow path, someone else is still taking away your books by disapearing them out of your archive.

(The bit about Amazon saying the problems was just with "three" books, doesn't hold water, because if you go back to the original folks complaints, it's never more than three books on one person's account, but it's not the same three across the customer base.)


Am I touchie about someone else telling me what I read.... ya bet'cha.

When I was growing up there was a quite fight between the librarian and the local busy-bodies. The librarians stood up to the pressures to not ban books, from Twain's books, to "Catcher in the Rye" to "To Catch a Mockingbird" to... well some of them felt that ALL the "Godless" sci-fi should be in that ban category. (Harry Potter would have made their heads implode.)

What happens to so many of the books?

They just disappeared off the sheaves.

The library would replace what they could, but didn't keep buying certain books just based on economics. You couldn't go into the library and read what you wanted, even if it was listed in the library card catalogue. You could only read what you could get your hands on.

And beyond that I've had a book ripped off the stack of books I was carrying by one of the same type of busy-body and stood there taking the abuse of their opinions.

I will defend anyone's rights to read their books, keep their books.


Do folks have to break the law to keep their books???? Or does a company with as much marketshare as Amazon get to force their changing opinions on their customers????

I'd rather make a racket now.

[Catlady]

Look, I'm all for the First Amendment, but it does not impose a DUTY on everyone to allow ALL speech; it only prevents the government from limiting speech except in extreme circumstances (e.g., yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater). Compare the Second Amendment: it allows guns, it does not require us to own them.

You and some others seem to see the First Amendment as creating an obligation for a bookseller, and the bigger the bookseller, the greater the obligation. I think that's a twisted interpretation that runs roughshod over our rights in the name of upholding them.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by dacattt

...
Am I touchie about someone else telling me what I read ...

I would not like it either, if someone told me what I should, or should not, read. However, if I wanted to read the author's books, which I do not, then I could go elsewhere to get them. So, Amazon is unable to control what I do, or do not, read. Unless you believe that Amazon has been coerced into make this decision for political reasons "... based on threatening governmental pressure ..." then surely this was a commercial decision - albeit one that was made clumsily - which presumably they are at liberty to make. Perhaps if enough of their customers don't like their decisions, and vote with their feet to buy books elsewhere, then Amazon might change their policies regarding the withdrawal of books, but I'm not going to hold my breath while waiting for a result.

[johnnyb]

Saying that censorship is exclusive to government action is like ignoring tha the are like a fourth "pillar" in a democracy...
People ignoring the fact that corporations have the power to literally censor something from parts of public consciousness... They are in my opinion stuck in a Cartesian way of thinking of themselves and ignore the fact or are afraid of the fact that change of conduct DOES affect larger entities and mind-sets... This is expressed in the way they believe that only large (that is, governmental) ideas do affect our lives and that only a government does have the power to bring about change which is ironic because after all, governments ARE ideas and only have effect (in a democray) if people ALREADY believe what they are trying to tell them... The real change in habit must come from somewhere else and that is a space that by now also corporations have filled to quite some extent...
To sum up, if Amazon does censor content, they are already paving the way for larger instances of censorship... Trying to separate them is not quite correct...

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Saying that censorship is exclusive to government action is like ignoring tha the are like a fourth "pillar" in a democracy...

They aren't.

The news media are colloquially referred to as the "fourth branch of government" in the US. That does not mean that news media are obligated to eschew any and all editorial controls, or that retailers are obligated to carry every piece of content available.

Originally Posted by johnnyb

People ignoring the fact that corporations have the power to literally censor something from parts of public consciousness...

Corporations do not have any obligations to promulgate any ideas or content.

Nor is there any viable mechanism to ensure that all viewpoints are given 100% equal media or retailer attention. What should we do -- supply bookstores with an equal number of books by Noam Chomsky, William F. Buckley and Stephen King? Force retailers to carry incest erotica, and then force people to buy it?

Originally Posted by johnnyb

This is expressed in the way they believe that only large (that is, governmental) ideas do affect our lives and that only a government does have the power to bring about change....

Incorrect.

It's clear Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Fox and numerous other companies have an influence. That is not the point.

Retailers have the legal and moral right to exercise editorial controls -- even if it does so in a manner that someone (usually the aggrieved party) regards as "unfair." To require Amazon to publish anything and everything is not only highly unusual, it deprives them of their rights to exercise editorial control over their own business.

You, as an individual, have the right to say what you want. But the right to free speech does not, in any way shape or form, guarantee you access to a specific platform for your views or content. If I do not want to distribute your ideas, I am not obligated to do so -- no matter how influential I am.

Amazon is a retailer. They are not a utility, an ISP or a street corner. I suggest you learn the difference.