Hacker News Reader

Comment by andsoitis | Hacker News Reader

Does this apply to the case where the owner (rather than the state), makes slight edits (this case)?

I mean, it is not like the books have been rewritten or history erased, has it?

No, it does not, but people here really like bringing it up.

I'm not usually a fan of slippery slope arguments but it's still worth asking: at what point do you decide it has truly become dangerously Orwellian and worth protesting against? Certainly it does strike me there's a certain disregard for consumers here. Imagine if your electronic copy of your favourite music that you listened to regularly was altered in some way by the publisher that you felt destroyed your enjoyment of it? It's actually one reason I'm not a fan of streaming services and only buy music I can keep copies of the files for - so I can be certain it will always be available in exactly the form I want it no matter what the publisher/ service provider does (including going broke or deciding to remove certain music from their catalogues etc.).

Absent from your question is the author [1]. The owners may have the legal right to edit and distribute the text, but by passing it off as Roald Dahl's words, they are perpetrating fraud against their readers.

And even if it were the author doing it, it would be dishonest to have multiple versions under the same title, unless there was a note at least briefly mentioning alterations.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35017707

Penguin, the publisher, has decided to also publish the classic versions: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/penguin-publish-cl...

So what?

Can I rewrite any book as I want and for any cries just say "Hey! I printed an original version! The whole 10 copies! Locked in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of The Leopard'?

Actually, your comment sparked a new thought for me. What if this (two concurrently published versions of the books) is purely an emergent property of our increasingly bifurcating society?

Psst! Hey, man! That's what was for years!

It's just the publishers weren't in the same country or even in the same political block.

So they are removing the original copies from e-readers and then forcing people to buy it again? What a grift.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com