Amazon removes some editions of Orwell's 1984 from Kindle Devices after issue with owner of book rights (2009) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8930904
NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...
The Australian Project Gutenberg site has them available for free download.
We don't have a word for it yet, given that classical censorship developed in the era of printed books, when such activities were technologically impossible. But I would say that it falls under penumbra of censorship because of the intent. And the intent is to remove certain speech from average reader's view without the reader's consent.
Censorship does not have to be total in order to be censorship. Even in authoritarian states, small oppositional media outlets may be tolerated, so that foreign accusations of media control can be rebuked: "Hey, look at Radio X, we are definitely not censoring them." But their reach is carefully kept limited.
"Computer Fraud and Abuse" seems like it would cover it? :)
Here in Australia, maybe "Unauthorised access with intent" too. Would need real lawyers/court to figure it out though.
Don’t want changing books? Pirate your ebook or buy a paper book.
(But having once reviewed a swath of inclusiveness edits via side by side comparisons first hand out of intellectual curiosity about what is going on, it was kinda a nothingburger was my takeaway.)
Doesn't mean you can sell license subscriptions or whatnot, but what you sell has to match up with what the buyer thinks they're purchasing.
Odd, when I look at a Kindle book on Amazon it shows a button to "Buy now".
> You also licensed the ebook provider to remove or alter the content as they see fit.
It is good that at least the EU has started to recognize the concept of informed consent. Clicking agree on a multi-page contract when that is the only way to access content that you (or someone else) have already paid for is not it.
> Don’t want changing books? Pirate your ebook or buy a paper book.
Those are the immediately available options, but that doesn't mean we have to just accept digital "purchases" being whatever the seller wants them to be while still trying to lure in people by making it seem they are buying something.
Last one I bought was years ago, about Jimi Hendrix. Still available but I don't know if you get the audio CD with it containing his solo acoustic home recordings. Very nicely illustrated: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42100.Voodoo_Child
(Imagine the near future, when GPT denounces citizens to the police for reading unapproved texts... Philip K Dick cross Orwell cross Ray Bradbury.)
So they already have all the data, but nobody is looking at it. But soon (or perhaps already) we'd have (the functional equivalent of) a conscious being paying 100% attention to your every act.
It's almost flattering!
We're there. It's outsourced to Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
"Why isn't your desk in front of the telescreen?" - 1984
Who needs infrastructure, education, public health, etc. when your primary concern is spying on your own population? The STASI and Gestapo - and their clients - would have understood.
Reminds me of the Culture novels by Iain M Banks. They use AI drones to prevent criminals from reoffending by constant monitoring.
> The Culture doesn't actually have laws; there are, of course, agreed-on forms of behaviour; manners, as mentioned above, but nothing that we would recognise as a legal framework. Not being spoken to, not being invited to parties, finding sarcastic anonymous articles and stories about yourself in the information network; these are the normal forms of manner-enforcement in the Culture. The very worst crime (to use our terminology), of course, is murder (defined as irretrievable brain-death, or total personality loss in the case of an AI). The result - punishment, if you will - is the offer of treatment, and what is known as a slap-drone. All a slap-drone does is follow the murderer around for the rest of their life to make sure they never murder again. There are less severe variations on this theme to deal with people who are simply violent.
Still, it's pretty easy to get a church to give you a Bible, I think the Gideons will send you one, so not the best choice to bootleg.