Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

sprovoost.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 28 posts

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#11

Post by sprovoost »

giaour wrote: post #6

So in this dystopian future, the OP had to deal with shitty customer service from a discount publisher for a while and then went with a competitor as a result? And the competitor was still able to distribute copies via Amazon? I'm just not seeing anything remotely like censorship here.

Yes, because Amazon doesn't scan paper books, this route still works. But there aren't that many companies that can print books. It's a matter of time before they all scan the content before printing. At least, in the dystopian scenario.

Book printers should be an easier choke point than social media companies, given that they have far less content to screen. It's just that no western government or advocacy group has bother to do the choking, as they are too busy pressuring social media companies to moderate content.

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#12

Post by sprovoost »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

> Just know that there are other options too. For now. Author baselessly predicts all other publishers will die out and Amazon will be the only option. Ironically, their article supports the opposite: presumably other publishers will continue to be successful specifically because of issues like this with Amazon KDP. Not exactly the hard hitting content I expected from the title.

Nowhere do I predict Amazon to become a monopoly. The prediction is that all other publishers will start following their model of screening content. Perhaps against some global blacklist, more or less following the model social media companies use.

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#13

Post by sprovoost »

pushcx wrote: post #3

> The whitepaper was included with the rest of the source code, which was released with the MIT license, see e.g. this archive. It doesn't? The archive he links to includes a copy of the whitepaper, but this repo is one archivist's collection of files, not an official distribution. The whitepaper is not in the nov08 distribution or the bitcoin-0.1.0.tgz, and the document doesn't include a license statement. I'd belie…

If Amazon wanted more detailed proof, they could just ask for that. There's no limit to how pedantic one can be in evaluating evidence. Maybe they need a physical wet signature from a specific bureaucrat at the US copyright office, sent by courier. Without knowing what constitutes evidence in their eyes, there's simply too many permutations of things they might want to see. I tried a few of those permutations and then gave up.

> The whitepaper is not in the nov08 distribution or the bitcoin-0.1.0.tgz,

How do you know this? The original link in Satoshi's email points to a file that no longer exists and afaik he didn't publish a checksum. So maybe it WAS in there. But is that what the Amazon robot was worried about? Probably not...

Also, unless you were on the mailinglist yourself at the time, you can't even know that the email archive is real.

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#14

Post by sprovoost »

Adraghast wrote: post #7

You decided to self-publish and got what you wanted. If you wanted a real person to take the time to sort it out with you, you should have found a real publisher willing to take you on.

So you're saying that Amazon will communicate their requirement to a "real" publisher, but not to fake publisher like me? Some sort of old boys network I should just pay to join?

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#15

Post by sprovoost »

koshergweilo wrote: post #10

This really another case of someone crying "censorship" when an automated process fails.

Maybe I was not clear enough on this: I'm not claiming my book was censored, at least not in the traditional political sense of the word.

What I'm saying is that the way the book got blocked, is a harbinger of what future physical book censorship could look like. Once the techniques developed for social media moderation make their way into physical book publishing. Amazon happens to be ahead of the curve there, whereas other printer companies are probably still a bit old fashioned (which is good news).

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#17

Post by giaour »

sprovoost wrote: post #11
giaour wrote: post #6

So in this dystopian future, the OP had to deal with shitty customer service from a discount publisher for a while and then went with a competitor as a result? And the competitor was still able to distribute copies via Amazon? I'm just not seeing anything remotely like censorship here.

Yes, because Amazon doesn't scan paper books, this route still works. But there aren't that many companies that can print books. It's a matter of time before they all scan the content before printing. At least, in the dystopian scenario. Book printers should be an easier choke point than social media companies, given that they have far less content to screen. It's just that no western government or advocacy group has…

Why would they scan paper books to proactively look for copyright violations? Have you ever heard of a bookstore doing that?

There's a different standard of due diligence if you publish a book vs just selling copies of it.

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#18

Post by giaour »

pilgrimfff wrote: post #9
GeneT45 wrote: post #4

Really no different than a flesh-and-blood editor questioning copyright. This is not the dystopian future you're looking for...

> no different Did you read the article? It's absolutely different. An editor would tell you about the work whose copyright you supposedly violated.

Unlike KDP, an editor is not a hyper-discount service provider, so they can afford a more time consuming customer engagement process.

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#19

Post by cmeacham98 »

sprovoost wrote: post #15
koshergweilo wrote: post #10

This really another case of someone crying "censorship" when an automated process fails.

Maybe I was not clear enough on this: I'm not claiming my book was censored, at least not in the traditional political sense of the word. What I'm saying is that the way the book got blocked, is a harbinger of what future physical book censorship could look like. Once the techniques developed for social media moderation make their way into physical book publishing. Amazon happens to be ahead of the curve there, where…

> I'm not claiming my book was censored

https://i0.wp.com/sprovoost.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/de...

Re: Amazon and the dystopian future of book censorship

#20

Post by sprovoost »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #19
sprovoost wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I was not clear enough on this: I'm not claiming my book was censored, at least not in the traditional political sense of the word. What I'm saying is that the way the book got blocked, is a harbinger of what future physical book censorship could look like. Once the techniques developed for social media moderation make their way into physical book publishing. Amazon happens to be ahead of the curve there, where…

> I'm not claiming my book was censored https://i0.wp.com/sprovoost.nl/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/de...

You take everything literally I assume?
Post reply on HN