To be clear, they are currently targeting "Incest" erotica. The irony, of course, is that Amazon's Television Commercial features a women on the beach reading her kindle, and the story on her kindle, is about a boy who has sex with his stepmother. Admittedly, not erotica, but still ironic.
Amazon should feel free to yank whatever it wants off its bookshelves (and, in fact, should probably be a bit more discerning given some of the recent crap they've been selling) - but, I don't know if they should be sending their customers _already purchased_ books into the memory hole.
When some of my readers began checking their Kindle archives for books of mine they’d purchased on Amazon, they found them missing from their archives
I think Amazon (and any bookseller) should be allowed to sell or not sell any sort of book they want. However deleting already paid for books that your customers have bought from their devices is totally unethical IMO.
Also unethical is not automatically given them a refund, and then verbally trying to humiliate them over their choice of reading when they request one.
They are not removing the books from devices -- they are removing them from the Kindle archives. This means it's safe if you've purchased the book, downloaded it, and left it on your device.
Two things:
1) Amazon is not deleting the books from the devices. It is simply removing them from the web-based "Archive" of purchased books. Any books on the device remain on the device, BUT, if the book is deleted on the device, it will be lost forever.
2) Amazon is refunding purchases of these books.
They already demonstrated their power to abuse your property with the 1984 fiasco, and that's the reason I don't own a Kindle. Fortunately it's possible to side-load ebooks from ethical vendors who don't demand an ability to steal your licenses yet keep your money.
Does anyone know if all of Feedbooks is DRM free? It looks like they're carrying commercial publications now and I don't know of any store aside from programming ones (and Cory Doctrow) that sell DRM free commercial books.
It may have seemed like a fiasco to you, but when the dust settled I still had a copy of 1984 on my Kindle, so from a customer's POV I'm not too worried.
What happened to not deleting books that had already been purchased?
> Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.
the "debate" here is simply the utter failure by so many to recognize power abusing non-power for ideas deemed unsavory
just as is the inability of so many to recognize that it is exactly the same when wikileaks is refused a right to be published via server space
you "debaters" should be ashamed of yourselves...but you won't be. i don't fully understand that part. is it really that hard to see the shape of the nation? the commerce infrastructure? the war, imperialism, peonage, acquiescence to abuses in the name of stability and financial growth.
yet nazis DID exist, and nazis DO exists, and the more often Godwin's crock of a law is pompously imposed the more will exist. ask yourself: how did they exist? were the german middle class simply naturally evil spawn of the devil children waiting to grow up and be spawn of the devil killers? how did they rise? not some macro view, a micro view. how did the middle class of a western nation create the nazi's military machine?
have you considered that they were propagandized? and how did that occur? why was information lacking? is it possible that information was suppressed? who suppressed it?
you are not immune to the very same information deficit which you endorse. you are not immune to the very same fear which envelops the nation.
but you say, "this is incest, i just don't like incest". well, there's lots of things you might not like. perhaps for example consider that 80-90% of you are not gay. presumably you don't read gay fiction. why are gays allowed to have a deviation from your norm while you are selectively willing to determine another deviation from your norm eligible for suppression? try to keep in mind that your cultural norm is a shockingly violent culture filled with shocking amounts of violent fantasy. "oh but i don't like violent fantasy". yeah right, i'm talking to the other 99.9% of you then.
you <--- yes you, reading this, are the middle-class of a western nation with quite a track record, and one that is only getting worse and so very very quickly year upon year of this century.
what questions will people ask 70 years from now to try to understand you. the middle-class "debaters"
metaphors are a powerful force against natural difficulty to place events into context. i would say you're only hurting yourselves, but actually you're hurting us all. You.
I think you take it too far. Yes, the powerful abusing the weak is not a healthy thing. But there is actually 'bad' in the world that should be suppressed. Unfortunately, there are people (you?) that are willing to say "we can't all agree on what is bad, therefore nothing is bad". That would work, except for the fact that we're human, frail and don't know nearly as much as we think we do.
Since the original article is sex, and you refered to it above, let's continue with it. Try going to an SA (sex addicts) meeting sometime and hear about shattered lives because of what someone did to someone else. I'm going to put my foot down and say rape is bad because of the horrible emotional baggage it leaves in someone's life. Incest is usually in the same category (I personally know a guy who will never have normal relationships because of what his older sister and friend did with him when he was 12).
I'm sure someone (you?) will try to argue there are cases where it's OK, so we shouldn't call rape 'bad'. PLEASE! Sometimes, there ARE things that should be suppressed.
And this doesn't mean anything or everything should be suppressed. If people are suppressing/hiding something because they did wrong (the government) then it should be exposed.
Except, whoops, we just said the government did 'wrong'. That's a value judgement! <sarcasm>Maybe some people think starting fake wars is OK and we shouldn't be so quick to call that unsavory</sarcasm> Value judgements have to be made as long as we're human. Value judgements mean there is 'good' and 'bad'. I don't think we want more 'bad' -- it's bad by definition! If we ever get to the point that we're computers and can hit a reset button, then _maybe_ right and wrong will go away...
So wikileaks and exposing corruption -- good, bring it on, don't suppress it. Encouraging rape or incest, I'm calling bad -- we don't need more of that in society.
Poor title ("Removing From Kindles") on the HN submission:
> A discussion thread on Amazon’s Kindle Community forum notes that Amazon has begun removing some previously-published books or stories from its store, and from the Kindle archives. Readers who have previously downloaded them to their Kindles can keep them there, but cannot re-download them (and will be refunded the price of purchase assuming Amazon can still find the purchase record).
Why "erotica" in the title and not "incest titles"? I know why. They aren't banning ALL erotica...just a particular one that most people would agree with Amazon on.
A particular bookseller choosing not to sell incest erotica does not constitute a book being "banned" or "censored", which only apply when the government forcibly prevents every bookseller from selling particular material.
I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.
This kind of exaggeration on the part of the blog author doesn't help her argument; it just causes people to (a) lose intellectual respect for the author and (b) give less credence to her argument.
> A particular bookseller choosing not to sell incest erotica does not constitute a book being "banned" or "censored", which only apply when the government forcibly prevents every bookseller from selling particular material.
Going by that logic, to "effectively" ban the book while not "technically" banning it, the govt just needs to pursue the top few channels to stop carrying it. Book will be effectively unavailable and everyone's conscience will be clean.
> I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.
But you would make that clear to everyone before starting to do business with them, right? Or if you decided to change your stand one day (which is quite plausible since things do change with time), you would perhaps offer a better reason then "Because I can"?
Exactly. The author is certainly free to put up a website with the stories in a Kindle-compatible, DRM-free format, making them available for free, or using some kind of payment system, perhaps voluntary.
By being knocked out of the store, the author loses easier access to readers, and payment processing. But the author is not blocked from publishing and getting his or her work on the kindle through routes other than Amazon.
I actually wrote those incest books as a result of a contest where it was the most popular category on the site...
Maybe you should expand your horizons. grin -- The Author
Ok, I'm all for trying new things and all, but the world-wide cultural taboo against incest exists for a clearly defined reason (ref: Alexei Nikolaevich, for example), not just because we're all a buncha prudes.
the world-wide cultural taboo against incest exists for a clearly defined reason
Of course it does. In other news, shooting people in the streets is generally considered bad, yet if you read a few thrillers and watch a few action movies, there will be gun battles. Fiction and real life: not the same.
Imo it's because you are just a bunch of prudes. It's just literature which by the way is widely sold worldwide by various bookstores.
Besides Amazon accepted the book for publishing, did publish it, allowed people to buy it and now is pulling it off without any compensation for clients/author.
Looks like abuse from their side to me.
Actually, the definition of incest varies wildly across cultures, even among those that are located right next to each other.
Consider this. In certain northern states of India, marriages or relationships within the same village are considered incest and draw very violent reactions ( even leading to deaths). There is a very strong demand to make it into a law. On the other hand, in certain southern states and in some communities in north as well, it is perfectly fine to get married to a cousin from your mother's side.
This article is an exaggerated pile of crap. Pardon my language.
Amazon is not taking down erotica. They still have a very large and healthy erotica/romance section.
What they are doing is removing incest-erotica published by Amazon's Createspace. According to the pages the author links to in his post, incest-erotica from other publishers remains available for sale.
Incest, by the way, is illegal in most of America, except possibly in the South. It's no different from Amazon removing bestiality-erotica or pedophilia-erotica published under its own label.
Long story short: if you want to publish incest-erotica, don't publish through Amazon's CreateSpace.
Why wouldn't it be erotica, or do we have a problem with people finding unconventional things erotic? Even things that may be shocking/distasteful to you?
Everyone's a freak and a weirdo, and the sooner we lay off other people for their kinks the sooner we may find acceptance for our own.
[+] [-] ghshephard|15 years ago|reply
Amazon should feel free to yank whatever it wants off its bookshelves (and, in fact, should probably be a bit more discerning given some of the recent crap they've been selling) - but, I don't know if they should be sending their customers _already purchased_ books into the memory hole.
[+] [-] flipbrad|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmc|15 years ago|reply
I think Amazon (and any bookseller) should be allowed to sell or not sell any sort of book they want. However deleting already paid for books that your customers have bought from their devices is totally unethical IMO.
[+] [-] araneae|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsolson|15 years ago|reply
At least according to this: http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related...
[+] [-] rprasad|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prodigal_erik|15 years ago|reply
http://consumerist.com/2009/07/how-to-load-up-your-kindle-wi...
Whether root access is readily available on a Kindle is unclear to me.
[+] [-] DannoHung|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w1ntermute|15 years ago|reply
> Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...
[+] [-] jsolson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] madair|15 years ago|reply
just as is the inability of so many to recognize that it is exactly the same when wikileaks is refused a right to be published via server space
you "debaters" should be ashamed of yourselves...but you won't be. i don't fully understand that part. is it really that hard to see the shape of the nation? the commerce infrastructure? the war, imperialism, peonage, acquiescence to abuses in the name of stability and financial growth.
yet nazis DID exist, and nazis DO exists, and the more often Godwin's crock of a law is pompously imposed the more will exist. ask yourself: how did they exist? were the german middle class simply naturally evil spawn of the devil children waiting to grow up and be spawn of the devil killers? how did they rise? not some macro view, a micro view. how did the middle class of a western nation create the nazi's military machine?
have you considered that they were propagandized? and how did that occur? why was information lacking? is it possible that information was suppressed? who suppressed it?
you are not immune to the very same information deficit which you endorse. you are not immune to the very same fear which envelops the nation.
but you say, "this is incest, i just don't like incest". well, there's lots of things you might not like. perhaps for example consider that 80-90% of you are not gay. presumably you don't read gay fiction. why are gays allowed to have a deviation from your norm while you are selectively willing to determine another deviation from your norm eligible for suppression? try to keep in mind that your cultural norm is a shockingly violent culture filled with shocking amounts of violent fantasy. "oh but i don't like violent fantasy". yeah right, i'm talking to the other 99.9% of you then.
you <--- yes you, reading this, are the middle-class of a western nation with quite a track record, and one that is only getting worse and so very very quickly year upon year of this century.
what questions will people ask 70 years from now to try to understand you. the middle-class "debaters"
metaphors are a powerful force against natural difficulty to place events into context. i would say you're only hurting yourselves, but actually you're hurting us all. You.
[+] [-] drndown2007|15 years ago|reply
Since the original article is sex, and you refered to it above, let's continue with it. Try going to an SA (sex addicts) meeting sometime and hear about shattered lives because of what someone did to someone else. I'm going to put my foot down and say rape is bad because of the horrible emotional baggage it leaves in someone's life. Incest is usually in the same category (I personally know a guy who will never have normal relationships because of what his older sister and friend did with him when he was 12).
I'm sure someone (you?) will try to argue there are cases where it's OK, so we shouldn't call rape 'bad'. PLEASE! Sometimes, there ARE things that should be suppressed.
And this doesn't mean anything or everything should be suppressed. If people are suppressing/hiding something because they did wrong (the government) then it should be exposed.
Except, whoops, we just said the government did 'wrong'. That's a value judgement! <sarcasm>Maybe some people think starting fake wars is OK and we shouldn't be so quick to call that unsavory</sarcasm> Value judgements have to be made as long as we're human. Value judgements mean there is 'good' and 'bad'. I don't think we want more 'bad' -- it's bad by definition! If we ever get to the point that we're computers and can hit a reset button, then _maybe_ right and wrong will go away...
So wikileaks and exposing corruption -- good, bring it on, don't suppress it. Encouraging rape or incest, I'm calling bad -- we don't need more of that in society.
(OK, bring on the down votes)
[+] [-] tzs|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasongullickson|15 years ago|reply
Here we go: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jul/24/amazon...
[+] [-] jsolson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dhimes|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] re|15 years ago|reply
> A discussion thread on Amazon’s Kindle Community forum notes that Amazon has begun removing some previously-published books or stories from its store, and from the Kindle archives. Readers who have previously downloaded them to their Kindles can keep them there, but cannot re-download them (and will be refunded the price of purchase assuming Amazon can still find the purchase record).
http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related... (linked from the submitted story)
[+] [-] sigzero|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ktf|15 years ago|reply
But it looks like it's not available on Kindle either, now that I check :)
http://www.amazon.com/Ada-Ardor-Chronicle-Vladimir-Nabokov/d...
[+] [-] SeanDav|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javert|15 years ago|reply
I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.
This kind of exaggeration on the part of the blog author doesn't help her argument; it just causes people to (a) lose intellectual respect for the author and (b) give less credence to her argument.
[+] [-] abhaga|15 years ago|reply
Going by that logic, to "effectively" ban the book while not "technically" banning it, the govt just needs to pursue the top few channels to stop carrying it. Book will be effectively unavailable and everyone's conscience will be clean.
> I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.
But you would make that clear to everyone before starting to do business with them, right? Or if you decided to change your stand one day (which is quite plausible since things do change with time), you would perhaps offer a better reason then "Because I can"?
[+] [-] jonhendry|15 years ago|reply
By being knocked out of the store, the author loses easier access to readers, and payment processing. But the author is not blocked from publishing and getting his or her work on the kindle through routes other than Amazon.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|15 years ago|reply
Maybe you should expand your horizons. grin -- The Author
Ok, I'm all for trying new things and all, but the world-wide cultural taboo against incest exists for a clearly defined reason (ref: Alexei Nikolaevich, for example), not just because we're all a buncha prudes.
[+] [-] newt|15 years ago|reply
Of course it does. In other news, shooting people in the streets is generally considered bad, yet if you read a few thrillers and watch a few action movies, there will be gun battles. Fiction and real life: not the same.
[+] [-] Kolya|15 years ago|reply
With freely-available contraception and abortion, it's hard to think of any good reason for the absolute cultural taboo against all incest.
One of the goals of literature should be to challenge cultural taboos. Any good bookseller should realize it.
[+] [-] nick24862486|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abhaga|15 years ago|reply
Consider this. In certain northern states of India, marriages or relationships within the same village are considered incest and draw very violent reactions ( even leading to deaths). There is a very strong demand to make it into a law. On the other hand, in certain southern states and in some communities in north as well, it is perfectly fine to get married to a cousin from your mother's side.
[+] [-] rprasad|15 years ago|reply
Amazon is not taking down erotica. They still have a very large and healthy erotica/romance section.
What they are doing is removing incest-erotica published by Amazon's Createspace. According to the pages the author links to in his post, incest-erotica from other publishers remains available for sale.
Incest, by the way, is illegal in most of America, except possibly in the South. It's no different from Amazon removing bestiality-erotica or pedophilia-erotica published under its own label.
Long story short: if you want to publish incest-erotica, don't publish through Amazon's CreateSpace.
[+] [-] prodigal_erik|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kmfrk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] potatolicious|15 years ago|reply
Everyone's a freak and a weirdo, and the sooner we lay off other people for their kinks the sooner we may find acceptance for our own.
[+] [-] DougBTX|15 years ago|reply