Roald Dahl eBooks Reportedly Censored Remotely - Slashdot

Posted by EditorDavid

• ›

  They removed “fat,” “ugly,” “crazy” and “female” — by "sensitivity experts." They also alter references to gender, race and physical appearance in newer editions.
  Non-paywalled link:
  https://nypost.com/2023/02/20/... [nypost.com]

  • Some important details about Dhal are missing too. This is not the first time his books have been edited, and despite his protests they were changed when he was alive.

    The original version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas (originally called "Whipple-Scrumpets" before publication) are shown as black African pygmies. They were "rescued" from their home in Africa where they were said to be prayed upon by animals, and are paid in cocoa beans. They also like to sing work songs. The men wear animal skins, the women wear leaves, and the children are naked.

    NAACP complained about the slavery overtones and Dhal's publishers insisted he change it, so he did. The version that is now considered the "original" by most people is, in fact, a revision.

    Probably a good thing it was changed too, or his reputation probably wouldn't be what it is today. I doubt the movie version would have stuck to his original description either, had it even been made.

    • I came here specifically to ask you a question, AmiMoJo. I feel the need to preface it by saying that I'm not trolling nor being disrespectful - I'm genuinely curious. Are you in favour of these revisions? If you're not in favour of them, how do you reconcile that with the sentiment expressed by your sig?

      I should also say that my relationship with wokeness is a bit nuanced. When it was about standing up for gays, blacks, indigenous peoples, etc, I considered myself woke. When it became about strident virtue signalling, censorship, cancel culture, and revisionist history, they lost me. I still support the stated goals, but I feel the methods being used by many are appalling and dangerous, not to mention looking a lot like the behaviour of the prejudiced cretins whose actions and attitudes they're fighting against.

      Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who destroy history - and altering it the way Puffin has amounts to destruction - are criminals.

      • • Re:They removed “fat,” “ugly,&am

          Who are these "experts", what studies have the seen that show that these changes have any significant impact on the way children treat each other. Its an appeal to authority without having any reference to what authority they have. My opinion is these experts are people in their sales department, stir up some controversy, get some free advertising, make some more sales. But maybe I am being too cynical.

          Yeah the changes maybe minor, but the impact is also minor if at all, or even negative if parents start ta

        • Oy.

          Yes, without the term "fat" in books kids will never be bullied about their weight again. Didn't they roll away the big, purple, round girl at one point in the old movie? Wouldn't that change the plot?

    • Re:They removed “fat,” “ugly,&am

      > I doubt the movie version would have stuck to his original description either, had it even been made.

      Disney could still turn it into a movie except they would change the Oompa-Loompas to Foxconn workers and instead of Chocolate they make iPhones.
      Then everything would be updated to modern times and the currently accepted version of exploited workers everyone is OK with... for now.

      • Re:They removed “fat,” “ugly,&am

        Cast Chris Rock as Wonka, make the Chinese workers dance and sing BTS songs, insert a gay sex scene and I think we have ourselves the next Hollo wood blockbuster.

    • Re: They removed “fat,” “ugly,&a

      I think there's a notable distinction between the author making changes in his own volition and somebody else just doing it after the fact.

      Though on that same token, there's also a notable distinction between editing after the fact to adapt to how the meaning of words changes over time, and editing after the fact for ideological reasons, and that can be notwithstanding of whether it was the author who made the change.

      Take for example, George Lucas modifying Star Wars so that Han didn't shoot first. I person

      • Re: They removed “fat,” “ugly,&a

        I don't think Dhal would have changed it if he wasn't forced to by his publisher. It was pretty much "change it or we aren't printing it."

    • Re:They removed “fat,” “ugly,&am

      There is a world of difference between an author getting feedback and changing the book before publishing and effectively changing a copy of a book people already own. You get to decide before you buy not book changed from underneath your feet.

      I always assumed that most books get publisher feedback, and most authors unless they are really famous have to do what the publishers ask.

      Also editing the book (not already "owned" copies) would be OK if the publishers made it clear it was the "woke edition", otherw

  • Re: They removed “fat,” “ugly,&a

    How long do you think we have, before they force us to start using Newspeak? I mean, we already have the Junior Anti-sex League (Republican party), and the Ministry of Truth (DHS, Disinformation Governance Board). Fck, are people here that blind?

    • Re: They removed “fat,” “ugly,&

      Nevermind, wrong country.

  • • It has to stop. There has to be a way to stop these people.

      Stop voting for people who support this. Make candidates announce their stand on these and other "woke" issues. Don't vote for candidates that support this "feels good" nonsense.

    • Re:They removed “fat,” “ugly,&am

      Stop buying things you don't actually own. This is hardly a phenomenon exclusive to ebooks. iTunes has replaced purchased songs with different recordings, and changing things after you've bought them is called "business as usual" in the gaming and mobile app spheres.

      It's become a case of "old man yells at cloud" (literally), because if it's in the cloud - you don't own it.

    • Re:They removed “fat,” “ugly,&am

      Ah, the glories of the digital revolution. Why burn books when you can just edit them retroactively?

    • My idea

      A change to copyright law: For any work that is widely released, it must be made as available as any derivative versions that are created by the copyright holder. Otherwise, the original work is automatically placed in the public domain.
      
      Example: If the copyright holder modifies "Star Wars", the original must also be purchasable/viewable at the same price, etc. That way, history is not erased for feelings or profit, and the copyright holder can still modify what he/she wants in the future.

    • • There has to be a way to stop these people. You have to vote for anti-corporate candidates and then vote for candidate who will reduce copyright terms. Until then the copyright holder will get to dictate terms until you're long dead.

        WTF -- the anti-corporate leftists are the people pushing this. This is just part of the "woke" revolution where "feelings" are what really matters.

        • Re:

          This is not a left or "woke" problem. This is a human problem. For example, right-wing Republicans in Florida are advancing their personal ideologies by canceling school curriculums and corporate speech and furthermore punishing people with legal and financial penalties to force obedience. There is no theoretical reason to think or believe that only the left or the right has a monopoly on trampling First Amendment rights.

        • • Re:

            Not in this case.The problem is editing an author's words to satisfy political ideologies. Also there is a problem with forcing an edited version upon someone who purchased the original. Its a quite Orwellian rewriting of history.

            That increases the opportunity for editing. That does not address pushing unwanted updates. Copyright length is irrelevant in this case.

            • Re:

              The idea is that at least a few people would have unaltered original versions and when the copyright expired they'd be free to share them. Yes, people could also make their own edited derivative works, but the existence of this [imdb.com] doesn't mean you've lost access to this. [archive.org]

              Also, as someone else mentioned earlier in this discussion, there's always just resorting to civil disobedience (the "high seas") if you feel present copyright laws are unjust. I have a copy of the entire original unaltered Star Wars trilogy

• For his Oompa Loompa songs in Tim Burton's 2005 movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny Elfman himself trimmed down Roald Dahl's original lyrics [destinyland.org].

  • Adapting a work to a new medium isn't quite the same as altering the original unilaterally. I'd be pissed if books I purchased were updated to versions I don't want.

    • • Re: Danny Elfman did it too?

        Wtf are you smoking? Hard non sequiter, dude.

      • Re: Danny Elfman did it too?

        No. And anybody OK with that, is not different than you Marxists.

  • Re:

    This doesn't surprise me. I read that Dahl was a nasty person that hated kids. His books have so many anti child messages that it surprises me that he is praised for his books for children. One interviewer said the only reason he wrote children's books was because "the little fuckers will buy anything."

    Myself, I have tried to read his books many times over the years. I never make it very far into them. I just find his writing style to be unreadable. But that is just me. I also can't stand Moby Di

    • Re:

      Cognitive dissonance is a bitch, isn't she.

      Are you _sure_ you understand what you write?

    • • Re:

        Obviously you're not into percussion. Moby Dick is choice.

        (yes, I ruined your joke by cracking one of my own, my apologies. But honestly.. if you've got a pulse and can follow a beat, Moby Dick is one of the epic all-time bangers, right up with Beethoven.)

  • Re:

    destinyland noted:

    Of course he did, Dave. If he'd've incorporated all the original lyrics, the song would've been five minutes long - six, with tuba solo. It would've brought the movie to a screeching, grinding, clattering halt for no defensible reason.

    It's the same reason Peter Jackson chose to leave the Tom Bombadil song (and Tom Bombadil himself) out of The Fellowship of the Ring movie...

  • For his Oompa Loompa songs in Tim Burton's 2005 movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny Elfman himself trimmed down Roald Dahl's original lyrics [destinyland.org].

    Dahl himself made changes to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Dahl's widow said that Charlie was originally written as "a little black boy." Dahl's biographer said the change to a white character was driven by Dahl's agent, who thought a black Charlie would not appeal to readers.

    In the first published edition, the Oompa-Loompas were described as African pygmies, and were drawn this way in the original printed edition. After the announcement of a film adaptation sparked a statement from the NAACP, which expressed concern that the transportation of Oompa-Loompas to Wonka's factory resembled slavery, Dahl found himself sympathising with their concerns and published a revised edition. In this edition, as well as the subsequent sequel, the Oompa-Loompas were drawn as being white and appearing similar to hippies, and the references to Africa were deleted.

• Instead of burning books all one need do is "edit" them. Now *that's* progress!

  • There's a word for that: Bowdlerize

    So cute that they're saying they're backtracking except they're not backtracking at all. Lying scum.

    But The Roald Dahl Story Company told The Associated Press that it worked with Puffin to review the books out of a desire to ensure "Dahl's wonderful stories and characters continue to be enjoyed by all children today." The company said it worked with Inclusive Minds, an organization that works for inclusivity in children's books. Changes were "small and carefully considered," the company told the AP. —

    • Re:

      Fine. Then tell me about those changes. Hey, maybe some parents will actually go "yes, that's sensible".

      But changing a book behind my back is a surefire way to have me resist that change on principle.

  • Re:

    Yeah, say this or that about the changed content, but the shocking thing here is there's a device called Kindle, which actually obeys commands to remotely censor and burn parts of books, changing them without user consent.

    https://slate.com/technology/2... [slate.com]

  • Re:

    Really? That's the best (and only) joke anyone could come up with for this ripe story?

    But editing paper books is much more tedious that the ebooks. For example, one method is to cut out the target page close to the binding and glue in a replacement page...

  • Re: A change in tactic

    Is there a difference between a publisher doing this for their own reasons, and doing it to get past government filters - making a Florida edition?

• Since most often you don't have control of the actual data when you use online services, because you never receive the actual files, censorship and arbitrary changes to "your" products, based only on current trends is inevitable. Don't use streaming services, don't use e-book services. If you can't get the actual mp4s or epubs, don't pay for it.

  • Re:

    It's not the first time it's happened. Early in the Kindle's life, Amazon deleted Nineteen Eighty Four from people's devices because they lost the rights to it. There have been numerous incidents of music libraries being wiped out by services where people "bought" the songs closing down.

    And yet still people carry on paying for this stuff. They will never learn. We need to find some other way to fight it.

• Bradbury predicted this editing of history with his video walls.

  • Re:

    But look at the bright side, we don't have to burn books anymore, we can make them "agreeable" now. Just remove all the non-agreeable parts.

  • Re:

    Don't forget Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut,Jr.
    
    "THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better-looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."
• As stupid as these edits are, this is a contact issue, not a censorship issue. You bought an eBook. Either you agreed to allow them to remotely edit your purchase based on some presumably unreadable contract...or you didn't in which you're entitled to a refund or some form of legal recourse. I am not a fan of altering old literature to suit modern tastes unless you explicitly state it is a revised edition. I find it tacky and tasteless, generally, but this is still a contracts issue. Either they had the legal right or they don't.
  
  Also, this isn't censorship. No one forced his estate to do this. They just wanted to make edits they thought would make his work endure longer. You're welcome to disagree, but this isn't a culture war, cancel culture, political correctness run amok, or anything else.
  
  Someone with a vested business interest in widening his audience is attempting to make his work more palatable to what they perceive as today's sensitivities. If you're posting on Slashdot, you're a bit too old to be reading children's books anyway, so you're not the target audience...in fact, I'll wager slashdot readers skew pretty old...and your kids are beyond the age they should be reading these books either.
  
  So unless you are a kid or have kids the age that should be reading this, sorry, you're not the target audience. Your opinion on the subject is about as relevant as mine on tampons.

  • Re:

    There is a fun bit in our contractual laws here. It's a part about "disproportionate and unexpected clauses". In essence, what it says is that if you have clauses in your contract that the average, normal person would not expect to be there (like, say, this one), you have to explicitly have them sign off that clause in particular or it's void.

    Yes, there are already verdicts around this. This actually DOES hold up in court. Unless that contract says in easily understandable language "we change the books if w

    • Re:

      Can I start by stressing that I don't disbelieve you, I'd just like a few more details:
      
      - Where is "here"? From your last line I suspect you mean the USA but please remember that Slashdot has an international audience so it is helpful to make this sort of thing clearer.
      - Can you provide a link to the actual statute you are referring to? "In essence" is helpful, but sometimes one needs to dig into the details.
      - Similarly, can you link to any judgements which uphold this concept, particularly where the

      • Re:

        The sig is very old now, I'm no longer in the US. Austria is my current base of operation.

        The rule in question is about the "Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen" (general terms and conditions), which are essentially click-through contracts like the one you usually sign when buying something like ebooks or other fungible goods (opposite to individual contracts that you usually have between two partners who negotiate a deal about a particular, usually non-fungible, good or service). Contracts like this are n

    • Re: Should have read the ToS - contract issue

      I've seen a whole narrator change because of publishing rights, The Martian by Podium Audio.

      But this is the hill folks want to die on, a publisher making some minor edits.

      Not saying I like it, I wish we had access to different editions, but you all keep tilting at those giants, and good luck with that.

      • Re:

        But this is the hill folks want to die on, a publisher making some minor edits.

        Minor is in the eye of the beholder.

        But they always start out with something "minor", to establish the precedent, then move on. If you wait until it gets to something major enough to burn you, you have to overthrow a mass of established practice. So you have to pull the weed when it first sprouts.

        (It's the same old salami-slicer, similar to how censorship starts: First they go after something disgusting like kiddie porn - and

  • Re: Should have read the ToS - contract issue

    I see.
    So, when your family/friends are killed, that is murder. When it is someone else that do not approve of, you consider that cleansing of society.
    
    You you/your far left extremists/etc are simply the other side of the coin with Trumpers/DeSantis/fascist.

  • • Re: Should have read the ToS - contract issue

      Are you butthurt he pointed out this is what can happen when you "buy" digital access tokens to content on someone else's computer?

      Or are you in the middle of Matilda right now and that got you. Maybe you're the proud owner of some Matilda NFTs, double whammy. What a clown.

• 1984? (Score:4, Interesting)

  by PuddleBoy ( 544111 ) on Saturday March 04, 2023 @11:10AM (#63342005)

  Wasn't there a book about a time when 'facts' would be released to the public, only to be changed the next day to suit the whim of those in power? To reflect a pseudo-reality that aligned with the prevalent belief system pushed by a few?

  What was the name of that book again? It's on the tip of my tongue...

  • by Bodhammer ( 559311 ) on Saturday March 04, 2023 @11:52AM (#63342121)

    "Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right."
    
    --George Orwell "1984" (June, 1949)

    • Re:

      Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right.

      Which shows how irrelevant your quote is. This isn't about the party being right, this is about the Dahl estate wanting to make as much money as they can.

      • Re:

        Keep telling yourself that. I guess we will both see soon enough who was correct.
        
        First they came for the Communists
        And I did not speak out
        Because I was not a Communist
        
        Then they came for the Socialists
        And I did not speak out
        Because I was not a Socialist
        
        Then they came for the trade unionists
        And I did not speak out
        Because I was not a trade unionist
        
        Then they came for the Jews
        And I did not speak out
        Because I was not a Jew
        
        Then they came for me
        And there was no one left
        To speak out for me

  • Re: 1984? Facts?

    Oh boy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory isn't a history book sweetie, it's fiction. So is Matilda. Maybe your mom should tell you the rest.

  • • Re:

      Has everything to do with 1984. Orwell was warning us of this.

      It also is true, what you say, that this was a move to make moar cash. No different than releasing a slighty-altered version of your wonderdrug, so now you can milk that patent another two decades.

      But, it's still government in cahoots with commerce to run your world. A bizarre upside-down socialist - fascist thing. It's eerily parallell to about 100 years ago, in Europe.. only now it's in the UK and US.. and a lot of Europe. But I hear some

• We need to distinguish two kinds of work:
  * humankind art that is here to stay without changing a comma;
  * functional texts like constitutions, engineering books, encyclopedias, children books, that are updated to reflect current knowledge and current views.

  Modern Disney adaptation of Snow White and Rapunzel to remove gruesome happenings is something well known and accepted. What is shocking here is they changed it without telling anyone, and that they dared to remotely change books already purchased. Rewriting old books in newspeak is literally 1984-level horror tale.

  • Re:

    Disney's adaptation of eg. Snow White is a new version sold as its own version; they don't go back and change all versions of Snow White ever published to make them fit their own version.

• by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Saturday March 04, 2023 @11:24AM (#63342039)

  After the author is dead, the "estate" will do anything including changing the written word if it means more money for them. Time for authors to start thinking about talking to a lawyer to put down exactly what an estate may or may not do. Maybe put some teeth into the legalese too, e.g. texts instantly enter the public domain if they are purposefully modified in any way.

• by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday March 04, 2023 @11:26AM (#63342049)

  This is one of many reasons paper books are superior to digital. You never have to worry about the book changing because of someone else's whim when you own a physical copy. The original words of the author remain untouched in perpetuity, unless the book itself is destroyed, or when the Earth is eventually charred to a cinder.

• What happened to the good old "fuck you, I do what I want to!" computer culture of the early 2000s where the second thing one studied after the most basic computer use was piracy?

  It is inevitable that authority seeks to fuck the people who should not have a flicker of regret returning the favor.

  The modern Left are as censorious as the Right because most people are idiots and that will never be different. Disregard what either want you to do, hate them (they merit no respect because the sole reason they want respect is to rule you by tantrum) then do what you wilt.

• I found Dhalgren recommended on an all-time-best scifi list and found it very X-rated. You are going to have a hard time censoring my print version of it. Part of the setting of the story is civilization collapse. The story painted a rather tame post-collapse society, but still, all rules are gone after that collapse. This is the type of book people either love or hate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
• The New York Times column dismissed it as "small insignificant changes" and does not understand the outrage. But where does it end? What if internet providers would start filtering some words, what if reading devices or smartphones automatically would start altering text? It is a matter of trust. There should be zero tolerance to that.

• The obvious way to perpetuate wokeaganda is to make literature a constantly evolving social conditioning tool ever more difficult for normies to archive conveniently.

  DRM and editing WILL be increasingly employed to this end.

• With the Digital era, history gets rewritten every time the modern sensibilities need to "correct" the past, rather than preserve the past as a comparison and learning tool.
  
  Remember, when you buy something digital, you never truly own it, and your access to it depends on a boardroom's permission.
  
  Buy physical media for everything you hold dear.
• The old dictionaries in the house - I better not throw those out.
• Trying to extend censorship across both time and space, disfiguring the legacies of people who can't defend themselves.

• In the family, we keep our e-ink Kindles offline, and install books only via USB (Amazon has made it a little more complicated to do that over time, but it can still be done). It's a bit less convenient, but it guarantees that nothing gets changed, and battery life is presumably even better.

  I am not a lawyer, but I do wonder about the legality of changing files on someone else's device. I don't see anything in the Kindle Store Terms of Use ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/help... [amazon.com] ) that one agrees to allow Amazon to change files stored on one's device. I expect somewhere there is some agreement to system updates, but this is not a system update.

• Why is there no link to the Times story being quoted?

  I did a Google News search and the only matching phrase for the text quoted is here on Slashdot.

  Anyone fact-checking these things?

  • Re:

    I was also looking for TFA. Typical Slashdot editing to not make it clear what the source article is.

  • Re:

    The (paywalled) link is right next to the post's title at the top (where it usually is).

• I'm amazed they did this silently because I'm sure they could've sold the revised books again, and sell even more copies of the original versions. I'm not sure who they're trying to please here but it sure isn't their customers.

• The owners of the property are doing it. This is them changing the book themselves because we stopped teaching critical thinking in schools and we stopped teaching context in schools and so they don't want to deal with the fallout of having various bits of content to the child doesn't have any guidance on understanding.
  
  They're not doing that out of the goodness of their heart by the way they're doing it because it makes the books more marketable. It's capitalism. Y'all like capitalism right?
• "Inclusive language" doesn't help anybody, except those who feel better by berating others. The ministers of susceptibility could very well write their own books, better than Dahl's, using all the words they like, and this way they would give their contribution to mankind; but no: all they can do is telling those who actually managed to write something that they are "wrong" and need to be corrected. And if you don't agree with them, it doesn't matter, they know better and everyone else needs to have his boo

• While I do have an ipad stuffed full of sheetmusic and harry potter and manga and other books, I still have a paranoia.. about the publisher changing the material. I've had that paranoia since 2012, when Amazon yanked 1984 from Kindles. That was down to a licensing thing with a publisher. But at that time I thought "What if the publisher decides to change the content?"

  And now it's happened.

  If they want to change my paper books, they have to come into my house.

  Guys.. we are living 1984. And the sad part

  • Re:

    Speaking of Amazon, books, modifications, and Orwell, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/0... [nytimes.com]

    • • Re:

        whoops. you only have to read the into to know what it's about though

  • Re:

    We are now in an Orwellian, socialist world, us here in the US and I suppose UK and most of Europe.

    Today I learned that billion dollar businesses are "socialist". Huh.

    • Re:

      Today you learned that corporations in cahoots with government IS faciscm, good, wholesome, Il-Duce levels of Facismo.

      Government is using the Corporate world to control your.. our.. world. And the reverse is true, too. Corporate using Government, to control our world. The wheel keeps turning.

      That's what Orwell was foretelling. He WAS a socialist, then saw the light, and wrote 1984 as a warning. He knew it'd get here. It's a little different, the timing's off a bit, but essentially -- and I'm paraphras

      • Re:

        No this is inane.

        I have known for ages that corporations are in cahoots with the government. The only way it involves any petty culture war bullshit is because it's a useful distraction when you chicken little about that rather than the important stuff. This is no conspiracy but there are people who think it's useful.

        But sure keep bleating about the red menace while the capitalist robber barons tighten their grip.

• We now have automatic revisionist history.

• This situation was clearly manufactured to profit from the intense tribalism we're currently perpetuating. If the publisher was concerned with removing offensive terms, then they wouldn't also be printing new copies with those terms in them and selling it under the label "classic version". This is just taking the stale works of a long-dead author, manufacturing a crisis around the books, and then profiting on sales of the new version by woke people and sales of the "classic" version by anti-woke people. The folks at Disney are probably angry at themselves for not thinking of this first since this will probably be far more successful than their own manufactured crisis known as the "Disney Vault". The best way to fight this nonsense isn't to play into the madness and buy the copy of the book that suits your political sensibilities. Instead, the best way to fight this is to forget that these works ever existed.

• It's a derivative work that heavily borrows from the original tex to create something new.

  It the new editions were labeled as parody, or as a new title with note giving credit to the original as inspiration, there would be no problem.

  Changing themes to suppress concepts changes the flow of the story and the experience of the reader. To put it under the same title constitutes deception.

  We call them dirty greedy lies around my house.

• “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
  
  Looks like any literature that offends our leaders' sensibilities may end up down the memory hole, to be replaced by their inept, banal scrawlings.

• When I update a Kindle book to fix a typo, Amazon REFUSES to update those books already sold. Only the new buyers get the fixed version. But for these changes... LoL... I guess print versions will gain value as collectibles.

• • • Dr. Seuss censored Dr. Seuss

      Six Dr. Seuss books — including “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” and “If I Ran the Zoo” — will stop being published because of racist and insensitive imagery, the business that preserves and protects the author’s legacy said Tuesday.

      https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/0... [cnbc.com]

    • • • • Re: after seuss was a huge success

            I don't know about you, but I read the actual linked article, and it doesn't say that this is their reasoning. In fact, they said they were honoring existing holds, which they wouldn't do if they felt they were going to be stolen.

            Nevertheless, these are de-facto banned books. At least, banned in the only meaningful way that any book can actually be banned in the United States. Generally when Europeans hear that, they assume nobody can read them, but no, that's only a thing in Europe.

            • Re: after seuss was a huge success

              There is actual book banning going on in six states.

      • • Re: you fucking idiot

          This changes the book you already bought. No one went back and updated the Seuss books on your shelf.

• • Re:

    Can you remind me which bit of 1984 was about corporate profiteering because I don't remember that part.

    • Re: 1984

      If you can explain to me in simple language how editing books to conform to a minority political ideology, and in the process antagonizing the free speech lobby, the conservatives, and the anticapitalists (anyone else left?) is pursuing a profit motive, I'll be impressed.

      • Re:

        The Dahl estate is a patriot seeking organisation. They are beholden to no one. They are doing this because they believe it will enrich then. They might be making a bad decision, much like FTX investors, but it's still a decision motivated by money.

        Or you know a, giant conspiracy involving a number of ideologically opposed groups exhibiting an astonishing level of competence and organisation. I guess that's likely too.

      • Re:

        RASCIST!!!

• • Re:

    What I understand is these are changes the publisher voluntarily made, so the idea that Stalin came to liquidate them sounds somewhat divorced from reality. It's also hard for me to get worked up over children's books for entertainment being re-written. It reminds me of the people raging over Marvel movies/remakes not being what they remembered. Might be a bummer to the fandom, but 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 dealt with grown-up or at least serious matters.

    I think your energy would be better focused on textbook

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    This is not the "far left." The far left wouldn't recognize a copyright and would simply allow the digital assets to be shared freely. This is more of a democratic socialist move, which is right of center, even if they're left of you.

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    This wasn't done using the force of law, and that's an important distinction.

    Say Nabisco decides it is more profitable to swap the fat in your favorite lard-o-bites for Olestra, and as a result you shit your pants. That's not even remotely equivalent in scope to the government passing a law requiring all companies to only use real fat in their cookies.

    Sure, you might be pleased with such an outcome, but the people who want cookies that make them shit their pants now no longer have a choice. Whereas in the

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      copyright absolutely makes this by force of law. Nobody but the copyright owner can distribute the original version.

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        That's because copyright lasts significantly longer than it reasonably should.