Readers who use Amazon Kindle have made a disturbing
complaint. Those who had novel
Nineteen
Eighty-Four by George Orwell suddenly noticed that it was absent. This was
caused by a complaint from the book's current copyright owners because a pirate
organization had been uploading copies of the novel to their own account and
selling them independently. Amazon acted immediately against this obvious
copyright theft, but instead of deleting just the copies sold by the pirate
company, they deleted
all copies on
every device in the network, including the legal ones. Source:
https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-kindle-5317703.
This mistake was actually a very fortuitous because it led to a revelation. It
warned readers that e-books are not secure. They can be lost very easily by
simply altering the database they are on. This can be done by hackers, but also
by authorities. If all books are e-books then it gives ultimate distribution
control by whoever administers the system. Supposed an oppressive regime
decided to ban a certain book; indeed that has been done many times in history.
Orwell's titles were banned in
Russia
right up until 1990, when the Soviet regime was on its last legs.
Animal Farm was banned in the
United
Arab Emirates because the Islamic theocracy
objects to the concept of anthropomorphic pigs.
Ireland
is one of the worst offenders; along with many other titles, it banned the classic
by Orwell's schoolteacher Aldous Huxley,
Brave
New World. There are numerous other examples. Ian R Crane raised the point
that the world "kindle" means "firewood"; for burning
books? The thing is, with e-books you don't need a fire; all you need is to
press a button. In the past, all book banning attempts failed because books
were printed with good old fashioned paper and ink. Once they have sold enough
copies over a wide enough area, a book becomes virtually indestructible. The
censor has literally to track down every single copy ever bought, lent or sold.
That is impossible. Indeed when the regimes fell or the censorship was lifted,
people came out onto the streets waving the book saying: "I had one in my
attic all along. I just couldn't tell anybody until now." What's more, in
those circumstances the "forbidden fruit" factor kicks in and the
book shoots to the top of the bestseller charts. This happened in
Germany
in 2016 when
Mein Kampf was finally
legalized, see:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/germanys-controversial-new-version-mein-kampf-now-bestseller-180961637/.
I do not have a portable Kindle reader. I have the app on my
desktop along with the Adobe Acrobat reader, but this is purely for books I
want to read which are only available via those systems. All my other books are
paperbacks, plus a few hardbacks; although I don't like them as much because
they are bulky and more difficult to handle. However, unless I literally burn
them or rip them to shreds, I cannot delete my library. This is why my own commercial
literature is only available as paperbacks. I did consider making
Roswell Rising an e-book, but then
changed my mind despite requests from readers. I once had my earlier work
Rockall on Kindle, but then withdrew it
and instead published a free second edition on Ben's Bookcase. I encourage
readers to copy it and print hard copies, see:
https://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2009/02/rockall-chapter-1.html.
If you are at all concerned by freedom-of-information then you have to
understand that good old-fashioned paper book publishing is essential. I know
that an e-book reader is "ever so convenient!", and there's nothing
wrong with using them for, say, travel; with literature on there you just need
for casual entertainment. However for books that you truly value and/or are
significant, then you must back them up with paper copies.
See here for more
information: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2011/04/ive-got-banned-book.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-hpanwo-fake-news.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/08/video-banned.html.
