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

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

No altered work is distributed by Clean Reader,

Debatable.
All readers reading the same title with the same "Cleanness" Level selected will see the exact same altered work. The readers didn't choose what words would be substituted for others in this altered experience of that copyrighted work, the designers of Clean Reader did. In exchange for money.

[Hitch]

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.

OK, let's remove the whole "cursing," "profanity," "bad words" and "clean" phrases from the discussion, if we can. These are obviously emotionally-charged words that aren't helping with intelligent conversation. I mean, so far, it's been called "profanity" when most of what we're talking about has NOTHING to do with any religious declarations, good bad or otherwise; it's been called "cursing," when nobody is being cursed or damned or sent to the 7 Hells.

Let's see if we can all get to some type of base of concurrence on one thing, before moving forward:

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?

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Debatable.
All readers reading the same title with the same "Cleanness" Level selected will see the exact same altered work. The readers didn't choose what words would be substituted for others in this altered experience of that copyrighted work, the designers of Clean Reader did. In exchange for money.

Yeah, it's a ponderment. I think my primary objection, (over all my other objections, which are indirect to the app, which are things like the power of magical thinking [why is Scat and Poop okay, but S____ isn't? Why is F---- BAD, when SEX or INTERCOURSE isn't? Why is Reading F---- not bad, when you know full well what the word is, so your eyes see it and your brain processes it, and your inner ear hears it, but you don't see three letters?) is the abandonment of the parental involvement, DIRECTLY, with the book.

And, as I said--not really jokingly, in my last post on this (prior to my Pale Horse post), where's MY app? Where's the one that removes all the insipidity to which I object? I find the vapidity of Bella Swan FAR more objectionable, and truthfully, dangerous to young women than seeing a curse word. Where's MY app, that makes her into a 3D person? Someone with interests, ideas, thoughts, of her own? Someone who doesn't do what a real parent would send them to Boarding School over? Where's the app that makes a real father drag her out of her bedroom, before she sits there for a year and sulks over a missing pedo boyfriend?

Where's the app where the "heroine" (ye gods) of Fifty Shades of Insipid rips off whatever bondage crap she's wearing, and beats the holy s--- out of her "boyfriend" dominator/whatever? Where's the app that puts a Scarlet Letter on all the folks who READ IT????

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?

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!).

Hitch

[DiapDealer]

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?

Oh I'm looking, alright. The idea of this sort of thing frankly scares the <substitute "clean" word for fecal matter here> out of me. I see it as the slipperiest of slopes that will continue downward until TV/DV[D|R] remotes come with sexual-orientation, gender/race-substitution and political-slant buttons; and where "just fill out this short questionnaire on your phone before entering the theatre so we can present the movie in a way that aligns with your world-view" becomes common-place if uncontested. Fig-leaf goggles for museum tours. Movie-makers and authors who only create story frameworks for demographic algorithms to later fill in with the "appropriate" words/scenes. Dogs and cats living together—mass hysteria! 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.

But those are just opinions. I can't offer any concrete evidence that that's where stuff like this will lead, so I typically avoid discussing it (for the most part) online. That and I knew that authors/publishers would raise a bigger stink about this than I ever could.

And no ... none of those fears were sarcastic (except for the Ghostbusters reference )

Originally Posted by Laridae

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?

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.

[murg]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

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.

The app is failing in the marketplace. A number of people discovered the app, and wrote/talked about it. They stated their opinions about whether or not this app was a good thing.

As a consequence of those discussions, a number of publishers have decided not to supply content to the distributor of the app. This is the marketplace in action.

The makers of the app are still free to distribute that app.

However, it's entirely possible that the publicity will inform a lot of people who want this kind of app and they will then buy the app. In which case the marketplace will also be working.

Originally Posted by BWinmill

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 difference is that with the app, no one is denying the ability to distribute that app. Anyone who wants to get the app and use it, can.

Currently the app doesn't work with DRMed content, which will greatly limit its usability. However, the makers of the app can get a licence from Adobe and include DRM into their app. The fact that Adobe's licencing costs are great enough to effectively prevent this from happening says two things: Adobe (and therefore the marketplace) is charging too much for this functionality, and the makers of the app don't sufficiently believe in their app to take the risk and spend the money to get the DRM module.

Regardless of how you look at this, if the app fails, it is because the makers/distributors of the app are unable to deal with the marketplace. Or have insufficient belief in their product to ensure it survives in the marketplace.

Originally Posted by BWinmill

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.

And the still do.

The copyright holders of the content have also exercised their rights.

Originally Posted by BWinmill

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.

No one is preventing anyone from using the app.

Anyone can download the app and use it.

If the current distributors of the app make a commercial decision to not carry that app, the makers of the app can put it into the Google app shop (if it already isn't there), or the Amazon app shop, or any number of places that will distribute their app.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Depending on how, exactly, they are accomplishing this in terms of technology, it also may be a violation of copyright in the US. See Clean Films.

I'm thinking that because of emphasis on the "moral rights" of the author, Clean Reader use is even more likely to be a violation of French copyright.

However, as everyone knows, copyright law isn't vigorously enforced. If it was, half (or maybe a lot more) of the students in the Ivy League would have a criminal record.

I've read that in China, translated books often leave out passages that are considered politically or otherwise outre. This affects a lot more people than a app hardly anyone is going to buy and which only makes superficial changes. While teachers and parents shouldn't use this software, I'd rather they use it than delete whole sentences, or ban the books.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by 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.

This is not quite true. People with print disabilities have a well tested and proven right (in at least several countries, possibly more) to have print material they need for study or work provided in an accessible format, which is typically electronic.

Deliberately staggered release of print and electronic formats in mainstream novels has not yet been tested in court that I'm aware of, but I'm guessing it will be at some point - deliberately denying people with print disabilities access to your product when you have the resources to provide it is a very questionable practice. And yes 'entertainment' is included as a realm that should be made accessible in the human rights legislation I'm familiar with in my country and again in at least some others.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by hardcastle

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.

Originally Posted by Nate the great

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/

In my book, that is exactly what they are doing when the censored books are supplied by the app itself. I could not possibly care less that the actual source files are unedited -- the reading experience, as an integrated ebook vendor solution, sells books that are being censored.

I have already stated that I support stupid peoples' right to do whatever stupid things they want, so long as it is clear that they are not affiliated in any way, shape, or form with the authors or publishers. Now that the app has been fixed, to require buying the book from an innocuous source, and manually sideloaded into an app that is an "ereader which filters your books" rather than an "ereader with filtered books", I am satisfied.


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.
Why should this app be any different?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Rbneader

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.

Allow me to be the first person whose parents monitored the books he read, to say that you are flat-out wrong in every last point you just made.

If a parent wants to instill a certain values system in their children, they absolutely can, should, and do go through the steps of doing precisely that.

Real parents (unlike the two-dimensional app commissioners and their two-dimensional daughter) are required to interest themselves in their childrens' childhood. This can and does happen.


You may disagree with the values system certain arbitrarily-selected-by-you parents believe in, and you may think it is a tragedy that children are, perhaps, emotionally stunted in your opinion... but all you have done is replaced their values system with yours.

What makes you so absolutely sure your values system is so superior to others' that it should be obligatory for adoption?
Would you, perhaps, like to make a law against parents raising their children according to non-state-approved values systems?

[RobertDDL]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Oh I'm looking, alright. The idea of this sort of thing frankly scares the <substitute "clean" word for fecal matter here> out of me. I see it as the slipperiest of slopes that will continue downward until TV/DV[D|R] remotes come with sexual-orientation, gender/race-substitution and political-slant buttons; and where "just fill out this short questionnaire on your phone before entering the theatre so we can present the movie in a way that aligns with your world-view" becomes common-place if uncontested. Fig-leaf goggles for museum tours. Movie-makers and authors who only create story frameworks for demographic algorithms to later fill in with the "appropriate" words/scenes. Dogs and cats living together—mass hysteria! 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.

But those are just opinions. I can't offer any concrete evidence that that's where stuff like this will lead, so I typically avoid discussing it (for the most part) online. That and I knew that authors/publishers would raise a bigger stink about this than I ever could.

And no ... none of those fears were sarcastic (except for the Ghostbusters reference )

I share your fears. Only, I wouldn't fully trust the publishers. And not all the authors, either. Imagine a situaton where the right to sell in a major market (a country, a retailerl) depends on the publisher's/author's consent to having some filters implemented. Or, if not, only sell a "clean" version. Not that difficult to imagine, is it? And how would publishers and authors react to it?

With music downloads, Amazon.de adds "Explicit" to any album or song with even the mildest sexual content. Not "porn," but Laura Marling, for instance, if you can believe it.

(http://www.amazon.de/Short-Movie-Exp...Laura-Marling/ if you can't.)

They don't just say "Explicit" on the download page, "Explicit" is part of the file names, and is added to the song and album titles in the mp3 tags!

(Interestingly, because contrary to what I'd have expected, they do not seem to do this in the US? Or just not with Laura Marling?)

OK, so this is not a filter yet, and if you buy the CD instead of downlading the mp3s you will be shocked by all the explicit content without having been properly warned, but it shows that Amazon is giving some thought to how they can protect us from the dark side of art -- and yes, this is a very slippery slope...

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by RobertDDL

Imagine a situation where the right to sell in a major market (a country, a retailer) depends on the publisher's/author's consent to having some filters implemented. Or, if not, only sell a "clean" version. Not that difficult to imagine, is it? And how would publishers and authors react to it?

Most of the links I find googling have to do with China, but I suspect it happens in a lot of countries where there isn't a free press.

Here is one author reaction:

http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/chin...hinese-market/

“To me the choice was easy…I thought it was better to have 90 percent of the book available here than zero.”

Ezra Vogel, author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of Modern China, statement made during a Chinese book tour.

As for situations where a rude word in one language is turned into a politer one in another, I doubt that's noticed.

I realize this thread has not previously been about translation, but aren't most books, world-wide, read in translation?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Most of the links I find googling have to do with China, but I suspect it happens in a lot of countries where there isn't a free press.

Here is one author reaction:

http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/chin...hinese-market/

As for situations where a rude word in one language is turned into a politer one in another, I doubt that's noticed.

I realize this thread has not previously been about translation, but aren't most books, world-wide, read in translation?

Yes...and authors need to authorize the translations. The point is that this particular translation was unauthorized.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

Yes...and authors need to authorize the translations. The point is that this particular translation was unauthorized.

Shari

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.

[piperclassique]

Sheesh! Unbelievable. Ok, here is a hint to the kids who have their reading matter censored.

Check out your books on the way TO school, keep them in your locker and read in the breaks.

And to the parents who believe in censorship....
You don't do children any favours by hiding what happens in the real world, or by trying to stop them reading books they have chosen. Please note I am talking about published books here, not internet nasties.

My two coppers' worth, please feel free to debate this, or just ignore me.

[DiapDealer]

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.

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.