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

Originally Posted by 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.

This victory is censorship in its own right. Yes, it represents the neutering of software that self-censored books. On the other hand, it represents society censoring software that gives people the choice to read "clean" books.

I'll let you decide which is far more dangerous.

[murg]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

This victory is censorship in its own right. Yes, it represents the neutering of software that self-censored books. On the other hand, it represents society censoring software that gives people the choice to read "clean" books.

I'll let you decide which is far more dangerous.

Actually, it doesn't represent censorship.

It represents the free market at work.

[HarryT]

Is there no way to load your own content into the app?

Originally Posted by murg

Actually, it doesn't represent censorship.

It represents the free market at work.

If it was the free market at work, the app would have failed in the marketplace because people refused to use it. This situation quite different. The revenue generating component of the app was disabled because a vocal group of people decided that they did not like what they saw.

I don't see much of difference between that and removing books from libraries. In both cases you have a group of self-righteous people who claim that they know what's good for everyone trying to restrict access to a product. In both cases those people are attempting to ensure that other people do not have the right to make their own decision.

The right to make their own decision, are the key words here. In this case, the users of Clean Reader had to make all of the decisions: they decided to obtain this software, they decided to use it, and (judging from the screenshots on Google Play) they determined the amount of filtering while reading.

If you don't like it, fine. You don't have to use it. I don't use it because I don't think it's a terribly good idea. Yet that does not give me the right to prevent other people from using it. I wouldn't want to prevent other people from using it anyhow, because I understand that there are uses for the software.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Is there no way to load your own content into the app?

There is. This is from Nate's blog:

I can also report that Clear Reader for the iPad will let you sideload Epub ebooks. I tried with a DRM-free title, and then applied the filters.

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...ng-experience/

Perhaps it isn't possible to sideload DRM-infested content into the app, though.

@BWinmill: Sorry, but comparing the protests against the app to censorship doesn't make any sense at all. Nobody banned or lobbied to ban the app. Some authors said they didn't want their books to be sold through the app - how on earth is that censorship? The app is still there, anybody can get it and sideload books into it (non-DRMed ones at least). I bet they are working on making DRMed books sideloadable right now.

As I said before, while I find the app silly, I can't get too worked up about it. There will always be silly people who think there are words that are dirty per se and try to keep their children from them. What those people will never get is that nothing makes more curious than taboo. Children whose parents inflict that app on them will know more "dirty" words in the end than the others.

Of course there is the Christian fundamentalist bias deplored by some of the complaining authors. That's a problem, obviously, but can anybody seriously think that parents who buy such an app wouldn't transmit their prejudices to their children without the app as well?

So, in a word: totally silly app, but I can't really see it doing much harm.

[DiapDealer]

There is no right to read "clean" ebooks. Hell, there's not even a right to read a book in electronic form to begin with. There is only the right to not read books you don't care for. In fact, the perceived "right" to change anything and everything one doesn't like into something one does is entirely imaginary.

The app will still work with drm-free, sideloaded ebooks, so no freedom of choice is being taken away from anyone. They're just being denied the fictitious additional right they mistakenly believed they had to buy/sell special, editable-on-the-fly, DRMed retail ebooks. Which at the very least, was treading on ambiguous/unprecedented legal ground when it comes to content licensing in this, the age, of digital "rights" (even if it turns out that it's not copyright that's being violated).

[hardcastle]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Isn't that the point? They are derivative works, and pointedly so.

This app therefore infringes copyright, and represents itself as the original author's work!!

You can do whatever you want to a book (including making derivative works) as long as you don't distribute the results - which is what copyright protects against.

This is not infringing copyright unless you use this tool to create a censored book and then sell it.

Were the original app developers doing this? I'm not sure. But users censoring their own books is not remotely close to a copyright violation. I find that the more hysterical people get over maintaining the "sanctity and sacredness of the author's intentions" are both missing the point and also conflating those concerns with copyright law.

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by meeera

"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."

penetrate? Oh my -- still a lot to do for those app makers!

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Hell, there's not even a right to read a book in electronic form to begin with.

So, whose permission do I need before I may read any of the many public domain books available in electronic form?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

So, whose permission do I need before I may read any of the many public domain books available in electronic form?

I don't understand what you mean. Nobody needs permission to read PD books in ANY form.

I meant that no one has any inherent right to expect that a book they want to read be provided for them in electronic format (let alone be provided with one whose words can be altered on-the-fly to conform to one's personal sense of "decency").

[Laridae]

Actually, I think this is kind of sad.

Rather than trying to isolate their kids from the realities of the world wouldn't they be better off teaching them what's out there and how to deal with it?

They'll have to make their own way sooner or later. They won't have their parents around to run interference for them forever.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Isn't that the point? They are derivative works, and pointedly so.

This app therefore infringes copyright, and represents itself as the original author's work!!

Nope. This is no more infringement than tearing a page out of a paper book would be infringement. No altered work is distributed by Clean Reader, and thus there is no derivative work or any valid concern of copyright infringement.

Heck, the app doesn't even do anything to permanently change the ebooks it displays; it simply substitutes words at the time it shows you the book.

And in any case, the app had more protesters than users:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...rs-than-users/

[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.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

This victory is censorship in its own right. Yes, it represents the neutering of software that self-censored books. On the other hand, it represents society censoring software that gives people the choice to read "clean" books.

I'll let you decide which is far more dangerous.

Bill:

Are you arguing that the authors of the works had no right to object to the altering of their books? Isn't that the free market, also? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Hitch

[Rbneader]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Bill:

Are you arguing that the authors of the works had no right to object to the altering of their books? Isn't that the free market, also? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Hitch

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.