Censoring Ebooks: The Clean Reader Brouhaha...

[Hex]

Just in passing, quite a lot of music is produced in "clean" forms (I have discovered this recently as I try to juggle an appreciation for Eminem with two small(ish) kids). If there were an app that let me listen to whatever music I wanted, knowing that all the swear words etc were removed, I'd have it.

re swearing in books, I think people write at a level of sweariness that speaks to them. So lots of Irvine Welsh's stuff had f- and c- words liberally scattered through every paragraph, if not every sentence, which might have a kind of music and certainly reflects the way (some) people speak but is kind of tiresome. It was my choice not to read the books, so I didn't.

Other books use occasional swearwords for emphasis. I don't think they're desperately important. They were one word of the many the author could have chosen, and swear words -- because your level of tolerance is so personal -- can seem really mild to one person and utterly shocking to another. Dunno.

But as Brian says, the central issue is actually whether the authors get the royalties.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

the central issue is actually whether the authors get the royalties.

That's the 1st issue
2nd is a complete list of replacements. It's not just swear words. Joanne Harris's description was frightening.
3rd issue is false representation. People may buy the physical book.
4th Encourages lazy parents to give unsuitable books to kids.

 

[soulsinging]

Just in passing, quite a lot of music is produced in "clean" forms (I have discovered this recently as I try to juggle an appreciation for Eminem with two small(ish) kids). If there were an app that let me listen to whatever music I wanted, knowing that all the swear words etc were removed, I'd have it.

Those artists get a chance to approve the change, and often choose how it is changed. This program just does it automatically.

Walmart got in trouble for this years ago. They had a company that would edit out objectionable content from movies and sell them on the shelves with no warning. They got sued and lost. I think the company was put out of business because they were independently editing works and selling it as the usual dvd. This doesn't seem much different. If it was a program you ran on a book you bought from amazon that blurred out offensive words, it might fly. But it sounds like they're picking words they don't like, replacing them with a word they have arbitrarily decided is better, and then making you buy their copy for their clean reader to be of any use. I really think this is going to be shut down in the US.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

In a perfectly absurd twist, turns out in the Clean Reader app bookstore you can purchase a copy of such illustrious works as 'Letters to Penthouse XVII: The Hottest Sex This Side of Legal'. And of course, the Clean Reader people make a commission based on every book sold. So they're the Amazon of clean porn. Typical hypocritical stuff. At least if they had a moral leg to stand on it would be understandable, stupid, but understandable.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Well, it's certainly easier to make the case for removing all that dreadful smut from things you otherwise like, if you start with Penthouse. Do they have a clean version of Fifty Shades of Grey, too?

 

[tinkerdan]

For me: legally this would only work if they were selling the program to the average person to administer the treatment at home; which would be the equivalent of taking a black marker to a paper book at home. That's the only way it could work because then the material has been sold properly with monies going to the artist and the only damage that is done is that which you do you your own paid for copy.

End of story. You can burn; chop; frape and otherwise destroy my work after you pay for it and it falls within your rights. If someone else does all that and then sells it to you then they have broken a number of laws.

 

[Glitch]

I just downloaded it on my iPad to see how it worked.

Unfortunately it didn't show the ebooks I already have in ibooks. So it's not integrated with that. I haven't bought anything so I still don't know how it works!

'The app is available in the iTunes App Store, and the app allows readers to access more than one million books within its integrated library.'

Based on the above quote I would assume they have partnered with an existing ebook retailer and thus the royalty issue is nonexistent

A quick scan of their license agreement - you can't purchase content from their store if you are under thirteen or outside the US. Isn't under thirteen the target market

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Actual humans. You get to see result.
This isn't just "profanities". It's a HUGE variety of words. It's an automatic lookup table with no sense of context. The Writer and Publisher don't get to see what is being delivered unless you use the misnamed "cleanapp".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler
He and others at least were using humans to actually edit. This is a mindless program of the kind a school kid could write. It's using a huge table of words the cleanapp people designate "bad" in advance, with no sense of context.
As it is it's wrong. As said earlier it's a slippery slope back to publisher bowdlerisation.

I think most pupils in British schools learned from the schools edition of Shakespeare. Certainly the Tom Sawyer we got was edited. Likewise we were never handed the complete works of Robert Burns for my Highers.

As long as the original is available then I'm not hugely concerned. If someone uses the clean up programme to take the swearing out they were unlikely to read the original anyway. It would be cleaned up if it was sold in certain countries anyway; I've had my work cleaned up and edited -- given it was in a language I couldn't read I have no idea what the final story was.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cel...-app-for-replacing-swear-words-in-novels.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ers-fury-editing-work-without-permission.html

Clean Reader is using a loop hole. Also it removes FAR MORE than what most normal people call swear words or profanity.

But the Maughans quickly learned from a lawyer that republishing books with the offensive words changed or removed would violate authors’ copyrights. So they partnered with a Chicago firm called Page Foundry, which altered its general book-reading app to create Clean Reader — a profanity-filtering program. The Maughans earn a small commission from books purchased through the app.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ng-app-can-sanitize-the-heck-out-of-any-book/

They DO NOT LIST the words replaced!
http://www.cleanreaderapp.com/faqs/

The “Clean” setting only blocks major swear words from display.

This is dishonest, as they do not list what is blocked.
You can't edit the list you have to submit words you don't want to see!

What should I do if I find an offensive word that isn’t being blocked by Clean Reader?
Try a stronger filter setting and see if the word is blocked. If it isn’t, please send us the word/phrase using the Contact form HERE.

Cory Doctorow correctly points out if someone buys a book and wants to black out bits they can. But he misses the fact that the users / readers do not chose the words to be blocked or the euphemisms.
http://boingboing.net/2015/03/25/i-hate-your-censorship-but-i.html
If I was doing an app like this I'd offer defaults and have the trigger words and substitutes user defined. This American couple are imposing their own culturally biased definition of bad words and good substitutes. They are using a trick, a loophole of real time editing on your own device to get round copyright. You are not censoring, they are.

All told, more than 100 different words and phrases ... And the fight is never over. “We keep finding new spellings,” Jared says, “and authors using different spaces, so we have to keep putting in different words and arrangements of words, different endings, slang terms and slang ways of using them. So it’s an ever-growing list

That THEY pick and decide replacement, then blindly, automatically is applied to a book they never read. The Human Reader isn't deciding. This isn't about protecting children. It's about making money from a particular American Demographic. They are all but republishing.

 

[Parson]

Call me dense. But I don't understand the problem here. If the authors are not getting their royalties it is illegal and the people responsible should be sued. If the authors are getting their royalties and the reader wants to block words, that's their choice. This would not be the way that I would approach the situation. But I believe it is a viable option for some people. Not the best solution, but one that can be made available. If someone mechanizes the process and the reader is willing to pay for it; more power to them.

If an author chooses to tell his/her story by the use of a lot of profanity, its his/her right to do so. It would also be the reader's right not to read those words. As far as conveying the appropriate story, losing those words might lose the story for some, but that's not the author's prerogative. When I preach I have a "story" to tell, but what is heard is sometimes not what I say. When a person writes a story what they write and intend can be very different than what the reader actually reads and understands. And for a particular reader the story they actually read might be the story that they want/need to hear.

As for the Bard, he did have "racy" stories. I would never (and be stupid if I did) dispute that. But I will stand by what I wrote he seldom used profanity.

 

[tinkerdan]

I just read this book:
Really great concept, but you know what the ending was flat and kind of stupid and I could do a better job in my sleep.
In fact I just took my copy and ripped out all the pages I felt were weak and weary and replaced them with my own brilliant pages.
Why those are so brilliant I think other people are going to really like them so I'll just amble down to the bookstore and rip all those pages out and replace them with mine.
I'll leave a SAE in each one so if someone wants to read the real pages they can just mail that to me and I'll mail it back to them, though this is so much better and makes so much more sense that I don't think they'll send it back.

Yeah all's right with the world when I can do that it felt so good I think I'll do it to all the books.

Oh wait! shoot...I'm sorry this isn't the post about humor in our fictions.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

So it sounds like we should start a similar app that randomly replaces some verbs with f*ck, and some nouns with sh*t.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Call me dense...

If you insist.

If an author chooses to tell his/her story by the use of a lot of profanity, its his/her right to do so. It would also be the reader's right not to read those words...

By not reading that book.

As for the Bard, he did have "racy" stories. I would never (and be stupid if I did) dispute that. But I will stand by what I wrote he seldom used profanity.

You could, but you'd be wrong.

 

[Hex]

Aside from the issue of whether the authors get paid (which is the central one), we're always telling authors that once their book is out there -- once they're published and in the public domain -- they have no control over their story any more. People can read it as they like and take from it what they want.

We all read books that have been changed from the author's original vision -- by agents, editors, and, more significantly, by abridgers and translators. In the last two cases, we know we're not reading the story as the author wrote it. If you bought the app and used it, you'd know too. Surely it's an attempt to give power to the reader to read the books they want and control the level of sweariness they see. We might do it differently if we were writing the app, but I find it really hard to get worked up about.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Call me dense.

If you insist.

I usually don't get involved in these discussions, but as a personal note, and as a member of this community I am going to say that that's really uncool, FH. Freedom of speech--absolutely and always. Freedom to get annoyed by an unnecessarily unkind comment directed by one member at another--absolutely and always.

As to the general argument at hand--and specifically on the argument at hand--I agree with those who are worried, and offended by this app, and what it may portend.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Call me dense. But I don't understand the problem here. If the authors are not getting their royalties it is illegal and the people responsible should be sued. If the authors are getting their royalties and the reader wants to block words, that's their choice.

I actually agree. So long as the app is legal and the authors get their royalty, then we're simply seeing user choice in action - a principle normally supported on the internet. As a reader it doesn't bother me that some people might prefer to pay for slightly different variations of the text.

Heck, many books are published that are edited down or otherwise abridged from the authors original manuscript. Stephen King and Neil Gaiman immediately come to mind as authors who were not happy with the edited down versions of some of their books, and and were able to release full versions later. Readers originally had no choice - now they do. Is now having that choice wrong? Should be burn all those edited down version of The Stand or American Gods?

What about all those abridged classics? Where's the brouhaha about those for depriving the reader of the original author's words?

Censoring for profanity is ordinary in film, TV, and music - again, without consumer consent, and it's been going on for decades. Classic songs by The Doors such as Break On Through and The End that you may enjoy are censored versions, with the original versions not available until long after in collectors editions. If I watch rock music channel Scuzz and they play Fall Out Boy's hit This ain't a scene, it's an arm's race then the word "God" will be muted in "Goddamn". No user choice - it's enforced by the channel censors.

So why the big protests about user choice being available for books?

If I were published, and this was applied to my writings, then of course I'd probably be indignant.

But consumers generally welcome choice, and is apparently a good thing - unless you personally disagree with the choices made.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The actual reader isn't choosing which words to block and the alternatives, The Clean Reader app people are, it's essentially NOT the human reader censoring, but 3rd party "republishing" by a the trick of real time edit on the users device. It's using a loop hole to break the intent of Copyright law.

Where is the list of trigger words? Secret on "Clean Reader" folks server
Where is the list of replacement words? Secret on "Clean Reader" folks server

Does the human reader of the book chose or black out? No. they select a level of AUTOMATED cleaning.

Can the Human reader change trigger words or replacement words? No.

The application is dishonestly marketed. This is NOT giving a reading human the option to delete or edit what they don't like, it's giving the human the option to choose various levels of predefined automatically created re-published works. Rather than have you download their automatically changed version (INSTANT violation of copyright), they make it sound like the purchaser of the book is changing stuff, but it's predefined automatic republishing, done remotely on your eReader to bypass copyright law.

The purchaser of a book on this system can only choose the degree of automatic republishing. Not what the application actually replaces. They are being dishonest about it being for children. They admit it works like this to bypass copyright law.

I suspect in a court case they would lose. This isn't user controlled and defined filtering, but illegal republishing even if the royalties are paid. The only way this can be legal and honest is to give the user control of the trigger words and replacement words dictionary/database. Currently they control this, so they are publishing versions unapproved by buying each copy and edit in real time on destination viewer.
I dread to think the changes that can be made to books if an even more unscrupulous company buys them out or their server is hacked as the app updates it's cached database/dictionary automatically.

We don't even know their definition of rude and profane. But it's far beyond normal F- and C- words. Bitch to Witch? Automatically
Body parts that they define as Racy.

 

[soulsinging]

It would also be the reader's right not to read those words. As far as conveying the appropriate story, losing those words might lose the story for some, but that's not the author's prerogative. When I preach I have a "story" to tell, but what is heard is sometimes not what I say. When a person writes a story what they write and intend can be very different than what the reader actually reads and understands. And for a particular reader the story they actually read might be the story that they want/need to hear.

These are not at all the same. When you preach, they hear the words you say and want them to hear in the order and word choice you intended. This is akin to you preaching, but while you preach, someone like me randomly picks a dozen words I don't like and without you even knowing, I cut off your mic while you're preaching and substitute my own words. You have no recourse, no way to know what words I'm cutting, and no control over what I replace it with. I could drop every "Jesus" and change it to "Satan" and you would be none the wiser and powerless to stop it. Does that make sense to you? I can completely alter the tone and meaning of what you're saying. Does it make it ok just because the audience might like what I'm doing better than they would have like hearing what you actually said?

Yes, your audience may interpret what you say different than you intend, but they will do it based on what YOU said, not some third party. So you're absolutely wrong in saying they don't hear what you say... they hear literally exactly what they say, whether they like the words or not. They can choose to ignore what they don't like, but they still have to hear it the way you intended to say it and base their reaction off that. If you tell the story of the Good Samaritan and they hear it as praising the robber, that's not your fault. However, it COULD be my fault if, without you knowing, I altered the story and now it actually sounds that way.

 

[soulsinging]

I actually agree. So long as the app is legal and the authors get their royalty, then we're simply seeing user choice in action - a principle normally supported on the internet. As a reader it doesn't bother me that some people might prefer to pay for slightly different variations of the text.

Heck, many books are published that are edited down or otherwise abridged from the authors original manuscript. Stephen King and Neil Gaiman immediately come to mind as authors who were not happy with the edited down versions of some of their books, and and were able to release full versions later. Readers originally had no choice - now they do. Is now having that choice wrong? Should be burn all those edited down version of The Stand or American Gods?

What about all those abridged classics? Where's the brouhaha about those for depriving the reader of the original author's words?

Censoring for profanity is ordinary in film, TV, and music - again, without consumer consent, and it's been going on for decades. Classic songs by The Doors such as Break On Through and The End that you may enjoy are censored versions, with the original versions not available until long after in collectors editions. If I watch rock music channel Scuzz and they play Fall Out Boy's hit This ain't a scene, it's an arm's race then the word "God" will be muted in "Goddamn". No user choice - it's enforced by the channel censors.

So why the big protests about user choice being available for books?

One, users DON'T have the choice. We didn't get to pick between the Doors versions, there was only one version and the Doors AGREED to have that version released. Now we can hear both because, again, the artists AGREED to have both released.

The difference in every example you cite is that the author/writer had some choice and control over the editing, or could have chosen to not have the work released if they did not like the changes made (or at the very least, knew they were signing away that control... ie the record company wouldn't release it or if it hits tv it will be edited using x procuedures). This is a writer producing a work, having it clear all those censors, and then out of nowhere some third party with no transparency is editing works with a specific agenda and profiting off it and you had no way of making an informed decision to consent to that editing. You know when you sign a record deal, they get last say if it comes out. You know if you make a movie and it gets licensed to tv it's going to be edited (in many cases, the directors themselves are involved in producing that version). You would not think, as an author, that when you sign a contract to publish a book, a third party that was not involved in that contract can just take your book, edit it to suit their own tastes, and then re-sell it for their own profit.

To me, this is no different than the Charlie Hebdo murderers... religious zealots trying to eradicate anything that offends them from society.

 

[soulsinging]

A quick scan of their license agreement - you can't purchase content from their store if you are under thirteen or outside the US. Isn't under thirteen the target market

At the risk of scaring you all off from ever visiting the US, no, not here. This country is chock full of child-like grown ups, whose delicate sensibilities wilt at the sight of a swear word. These are the same people that are afraid their children will "catch" being gay if we stop persecuting gay adults, that America is not as competitive as it was and the solution is to teach the Bible instead of science, and that vaccinations are a tool of ivory tower elitists to try to poison and control good, simple (minded), God-fearing folk.

This is a big misconception I see around here among the program's defenders... the ever-popular "it's for the children" defense. Make no mistake, this is NOT targeted at kids. It's targeted at mega-church congregants, the kind with lots of disposable dollars that like to feel religious (by reading books that are pastor-approved) rather than be religious (by engaging with things they find troubling the way their founder did when he hung out with lepers and prostitutes, rather than pretending they didn't exist).