Clean Reader

[rowyn]

This subject came up on Twitter this morning. I tweeted about it a bit myself, but Twitter is not a great place for talking about complex subjects.

There are some questions about whether the Clean Reader app works as it says it does. For the sake of discussion, I will assume that it does what it claims: take an uncensored ebook that the user legally owns and display that ebook to the user with the obscenities censored out. The censorship settings are a changeable toggle: the user can opt to uncensor the ebook at any time. The app doesn't change the ebook, nor does it sell users altered ebooks. It has the option to alter the display of purchased copies.

I have no personal use for this product. I do not think obscenities are a wonderful thing that enriches language, but I don't find them all that offensive, either. I'd rather read the book the author wrote than a bowlderized version.

However, I have great sympathy for those who do find obscenities and profanities offensive. I rarely use them in my own writing in part because of this. If someone chooses to buy a book and then black out all the bad words in their personal, legally-owned copy, that seems perfectly reasonable to me. If they want to buy an app to do the same thing for them automatically: fine. I may find this a bit silly, and I don't want to read their copy, but it has no effect on me. The copyright holder still gets paid. The app is not charging for a derivative work. It's all good. I feel like this falls, correctly, under "fair use".

But there are some interesting hypothetical cases around the same concept. For example:

* An app that censors based on content, removing homosexual characters or minorities, altering religions, etc.: I would not think well of anyone who used such an app, but if it's only for their personal legally-owned copy, I'd still call it fair use. Only a twit would use it. But twits have rights too.

* A school board that orders all the school library books censored via app: This school board needs to be recalled. But the point of failure is the school board, and not the existence of the app. I am not sure I'd go so far as to say "libraries should not be allowed to lend copies of bowlderized books", but I wouldn't be upset if a law prohibited libraries from censoring their legally-owned copies of books, either. Lending out a book you've altered strikes me as different in a meaningful way from altering one you only intend to read yourself.

* Similarly, I think that selling censored books is also on different legal ground: that even if you own a copy of a book, you are not necessarily allowed to alter it any way that you like and re-sell your copy. (I think this gets into "derivative works".) But I'm not sure of the legal grounds here. Legal or not, it's ethically dubious at best.

That's all I can think of for now. What do you think of this issue?

Comments

[octantis.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it's not legal to alter and resell an author's work under copyright law at least. I think that counts for libraries too, or if it doesn't, it should, because it's being presented and misrepresented to the public at large. If it were something like a public reading or art installation, I think it'd be covered under derivative works since it's being presented as something else in its own right.

If there was an app that somehow could censor out homosexual relationships or racial representations on an ereader as voluntarily installed by the reader's owner, I think it'd be legal despite actually changing the story, as it's not a presentation of the material, but more like an interface option of the device itself. I also have no idea how an app would do that, but either way if a jackass wants to hate people, they don't need an app to do it, so they can have one that makes it snow swastikas down the page while they're reading for all I care. I'd be more bothered if they used this to present the work to their children, but again I don't have a right to interfere there.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and the degree to which you alter a work to present as a derivative matters too, legally. It's kind of murky though, and I'm no expert. Intent is taken into consideration, so if someone's making an app to censor a work and trying to sell that as a derivative, it won't fly, but if someone is doing a parody by changing all the swearing to "waffles" then they can slide past, I think, even if it's dumb as hell.

[rowyn]

Satire and parody get more protection than most. For some good reasons, but still. It can be kinda crappy.

It does strike me as bad to change a text and present it as the original, like falsely attributing your words to another. Not an issue with the app per se, but I can definitely see how changing a purchased book and reselling it would be a problem.

And like you say, it sucks that people will censor what their kids can see, but all the alternatives are even worse. :| I'm glad my parents just let me read what I wanted.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Yeah.. sadly, we can't outlaw the dumb. Which is a good thing, honestly, because I'd be in jail at some point. :D

I thought about this some more, and I think a more direct way of putting my view is like this...

It's about choice. The buyer has the right to 'consume' the content however they want to. Artists can try as hard as they can to convey what they intend, but in the end they don't control how someone interprets their work. If I write a super sad song and pour my heart and soul into it, and someone wants to listen to it at double speed because coked-up emo chipmunk is hilarious, nothing I can do about that.

It's a choice the consumer has to consciously make, though. If they want to censor a book for themselves, the app is just a tool to do that, the same as a bottle of wite-out would be.

This is distinct from presentation. A retailer or distributor is obliged to present the material unaltered. Presenting an alternative they censored themselves, even if they offer both versions, is NOT kosher. Even if they're offering a choice, the recipient choosing a censored alternative is different from the recipient consuming the content as altered by themselves, because the distributor has inserted themselves into the creative process. At the very least, the possibility (however remote) of a consumer finding and believing the altered material being presented is the original is enough to rule this out completely.