NY Times Goes Off On Amazon Because Some People Are Publishing Fake George Orwell Books

from the but,-hey,-what-about-that-public-domain dept

David Streitfeld is a NY Times reporter who, among other things, covers Amazon. As far as I can tell, he has never written about Amazon in an article where he doesn't present things in the worst, most distorted anti-Amazon light. It's gotten to the point where I generally just won't bother with a Times article about Amazon if it's by Streitfeld, because it's guaranteed to be misleading. Somehow, however, I made it through most of this recent article about counterfeit George Orwell books on Amazon before realizing it was yet another Streitfeld hit piece. The article itself is kind of interesting: there are a bunch of folks attempting to sell unofficial George Orwell books on Amazon, and sometimes they're garbage.

What I find odd, is that while the article admits that many are published in India, where Orwell's works are in the public domain, the article makes no mention of the odd copyright situation in the US and UK, where Orwell's books all should be in the public domain based on the copyright deal that was made with Orwell when he wrote the books. Under those terms, all of Orwell's books -- including Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) -- should have entered the public domain years ago, meaning that there would be a robust market for legitimate copies of those works.

Streitfeld also complains about some attempts to "improve" on Orwell.

Most of the distorted texts are likely due to ignorance and sloppiness but at their most radical the books try to improve Orwell, as with the unauthorized “high school edition” of his 1933 memoir. The editing was credited to a Moira Propreat. She could not be reached for comment; in fact, her existence could not be verified.

“Down and Out” is an unflinching look at brutal behavior among starving people, which makes Ms. Propreat’s self-appointed task of rendering the book “more palatable” rather quixotic.

Streitfeld is rather subtle in mocking "Moira Propreat" ("more appropriate") but misses the point again. If those works were in the public domain, as intended, then there would be plenty of opportunities for people to update, remix, change, edit, annotate and do whatever they wanted with Orwell's works. And that would, undoubtedly lead to a bursting of creativity. While it's more limited here -- because it's locked down by copyright -- it's little surprise that what few books have made it out there are of dubious quality and value.

But how is that Amazon's fault as opposed to copyright for limiting the ability of more thorough individuals and companies to do this kind of work? It's also unclear why Amazon is getting the blame for selling badly edited books. Going back decades to Smith v. California, the Supreme Court has held you can't hold bookseller's liable for the content of the books. But Streitfeld ignores all of that and seems to suggest that this is all Amazon's fault, because Amazon is Amazon. He argues -- taking talking points directly from the Authors Guild -- that Amazon won't vet these books because it will 'drag profits down," leaving out the fact that it's impossible to catch all such things.

Yes, there's a legitimate argument that buyers of such books may be annoyed and confused by a less than accurate copy of an Orwell book, but to blame Amazon, and to ignore the copyright issues that brought us here, is a really weird choice, but if it involves blaming Amazon for some other issue, it's the choice the NY Times and Streitfeld always seem to make.

Filed Under: 1984, animal farm, copyright, david streitfeld, george orwell, public domain, remix
Companies: amazon, ny times

Samsung's Smart TVs Are Collecting And Storing Your Private Conversations

from the I-hear-the-secrets-that-you-keep/when-you-talk-by-the-TV dept

Guess who's eavesdropping on you now? It's not some nefarious government agency (although, rest assured, there has been no downturn in surveillance). Nope, it's that smart TV you paid good money for and invited into your home.

The "now" is misleading. Smart TVs have been doing this ever since manufacturers decided customers preferred to order their electronics around orally, rather than using the remote they can never find. And that's just the "eavesdropping" part. Most smart TVs are harvesting plenty of data on top of that, including viewing habits, search terms, browsing history… pretty much anything that makes a TV "smart" is collected and transmitted not just to the manufacturer, but to plenty of unknown third parties. Usually, this information is used to send "relevant ads" to TV owners, as if the several hundred dollars spent on the device wasn't enough of a revenue stream.

Samsung -- which is currently catching a lot of internet heat for its so-called "Privacy Policy" -- is no exception. It's the wording used that's making it the target du jour, turning other recent privacy policy villains (LG: "agree to share damn near everything or enjoy your super-expensive 'stupid' TV"; Microsoft: "why don't we just treat your living room like a movie theater and use our camera technology to count heads and charge increased VOD 'admission'") into distant memories.

Under "Voice recognition," Samsung's privacy policy says this:

To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.

Obviously, some very temporary "collection" and "transmission" needs to take place to allow a third party service to "recognize" the user's voice and ensure the smart TV does what it's told. But Samsung also collects and captures these communications... and it doesn't really say how, where or for how long these are stored.

The EFF's Parker Higgins noted that Samsung's voice recognition policy sounds eerily like the description of "telescreens" from George Orwell's really-not-supposed-to-be-a-blueprint-for-the-future 1984.

Left: Samsung SmartTV privacy policy, warning users not to discuss personal info in front of their TV Right: 1984 pic.twitter.com/osywjYKV3W

— Parker Higgins (@xor) February 8, 2015

Compare Samsung's wording...

Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.

with Orwell's:

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment…

You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Fun stuff. The only thing missing from the scenario is a government intermediary. But it's not much a stretch to insert one.

It could certainly be construed that any personal communications collected and stored by Samsung would fall under the Third Party Doctrine. If a government agency (local law enforcement, FBI, etc.) wishes to acquire these, they wouldn't face much of a challenge because of the lowered expectation of privacy. If Suspect X is viewed carrying a Samsung smart TV into his home, law enforcement could issue a subpoena to Samsung to acquire any voice recordings it had collected from that device. Eavesdropping by proxy. Discuss a drug deal in front of the TV? Here come the cops. No warrants or wiretaps needed.

This hypothetical would require law enforcement to know the device's ID number, something that would be hard to obtain without an actual search warrant. In the most likely scenario, the voice recognition data would be collected after a regular search had been completed. Now, previous conversations people thought no one heard could be introduced as evidence against them, thanks to the widescreen narc installed on the premises.

Here's a hypothetical that's even more "fun" to consider: a law enforcement agency is aware certain smart TVs collect and store voice recordings (along with viewing habits, internet browsing history, search terms, etc.) So, officers kick off a gun amnesty program where unregistered weapons can be turned in for free big screen TVs. Now, this law enforcement agency has a small army of hi-def confidential informants installed in numerous homes. All data can be collected at the agency's convenience, using little more than the "unregistered guns must belong solely to criminals" rationale.

But Samsung isn't the only device manufacturer collecting, storing and transmitting its customers' everyday conversations. Others do it, too. Some just hide it better. In LG's 50+ pages of smart TV fine print, it says the following about voice recognition:

I agree that LG Electronics Inc. ("LGE") may process Voice Information in the manner set out in the Privacy Policy and below.

Voice Information refers to the recording of voice commands and associated data, such as information about the input device that is used to record commands (e.g., Magic Remote or built-in microphone), OS information, TV model information, content provider, channel information and service results.

I understand and agree that Voice Information may be use for the purpose of powering the voice activation feature when used to control, receive, and improve LG Smart TV Services and as described in the Privacy Policy.

I further understand and agree that LGE may share Voice Information with third parties, including providers of voice analytics.

I understand and agree that Voice Information may be transferred to, and used by, third party service providers on LGE's behalf in various countries around the world (including Korea), some of which may not offer the same level of data protection, for the purposes set out in the Privacy Policy.

And there's your Third Party Doctrine. All anyone arguing for the right to subpoena voice information has to do is point to the User Agreement as clear evidence that the person in question is voluntarily turning over voice recordings to a third party. And away goes the expectation of privacy.

We don't expect our devices to send overheard conversations to anyone other than the voice recognition technology provider. But they do. And they send it (and store it) without providing any specifics about the unnamed third parties, where they're located, how secure these transmissions are (to protect them from criminals -- the other unwanted "third parties") or how long the manufacturer itself retains this data.

The transparency level of these manufacturers rivals that of the government. And that's not a good thing, because it makes it far too easy for them to become willing partners with agencies that thrive on the abuse of the Third Party Doctrine. Samsung -- and manufacturers like it -- need to provide more than vague assurances. They need to explicitly explain what's happening to all the data they're collecting, especially when the collection involves entertainment devices listening in on private conversations... and calling it a "feature."

Filed Under: 1984, 3rd party doctrine, conversations, privacy, smart tvs, surveillance
Companies: lg, samsung

Amid NSA Scandal, Orwell Books Rocket Up The Sellers Lists

from the i-thought-nobody-cared? dept

As the NSA spying scandal lumbers along, or as some reports suggest, begins, reports of American apathy have already rolled in. Of course, those supposed indifferent shrugs tend to amount more to how the questions are being asked than actual viewpoints. Couple that with how social humans are as a species, is in my opinion quite dangerous. It'd be all too easy for people to hear reports that nobody really seems to care about any of this intrusive data gathering business and decide that they should feel similarly.

Fortunately, there's at least some evidence that such an effect isn't occurring. Otherwise, we're going to have to come up with a whole new logical reason as to why George Orwell's books, particularly 1984, are skyrocketing up the hot sellers lists. As Gawker notes:

According to Amazon's Movers & Shakers countdown, three different editions of George Orwell's alt-history book Nineteen Eighty-Four have shot up hundreds of spots on the chart since news of the NSA's clandestine spying program PRISM broke late last week. One edition in particular — the Centennial Edition — has exploded in popularity, increasing its sales rank by 7,000% in days.

Now, before you cheer this on, it's worth noting that other books on the "Movers and Shakers" list aren't so politically-minded, unless books on being a gentleman (pshhh!), books on calorie counting (pshhh!), or books by Glenn Beck (PSHHH!) actually have some value there that I'm not aware of. Still, it's encouraging to see signs that people are paying attention. That, after all, is how change actually occurs. I might suggest some lovely texts by Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine as well, but Orwell is certainly a start.

Filed Under: 1984, books, george orwell, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy

DailyDirt: Big Brother Ads

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The year 1984 didn't quite turn out the way the book did, but we're already living in a world where there are ubiquitous cameras tracking our every move. But it's not necessarily the government behind the cameras -- a lot of cameras are for private security and... possibly advertisers. Here are a few stories that might make you want to dress up like the Unabomber when you go out.

• A billboard at a London bus stop determines (or tries to) people's gender and present ads accordingly. The system apparently is about 90% accurate, and it doesn't apologize for its mistakes. [url]
• Eyetracking billboards haven't exactly caught on, but the technology exists with cameras that can tell when your retinas are aligned for optimal ad delivery. If these eye-trackers do catch on, there might be a new market of ad-blocking sunglasses... [url]
• Immersive Labs has a prototype ad system that tries to personalize and target its promotions using a collection of software tools that include face recognition and machine learning to figure out the demographics of its audience. The creators of this system say their product will only deliver the ads that people want to see. [Ahem.] [url]
• To discover more interesting advertising-related content, check out what's floating around on StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: 1984, ads, algorithms, billboards, eyetracking, face recognition
Companies: immersive labs

DailyDirt: Ads Are Content

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

One of the recurring themes around here is that advertising should be engaging and entertaining, not annoying. Every year, there are excellent examples of this truism -- during the halftime of the Superbowl. Some ads are easily forgotten, but some are remembered for decades (and even associated with the products they were trying to promote). Here are just a few more reminders, just in case you're busy this coming Sunday.

• Apple's classic "1984" superbowl ad seems to be one of the few things remembered from that game's advertising. Who are the "drones" now? [url]
• The Sausage King of Chicago is back selling Japanese-made SUVs. Save Ferris! [url]
• Freaking people out with (fake) flying people in the skies of NYC... is supposed to get people to watch a movie? Possibly viral? Check. Is this obviously connected to the product being advertised? Uh... [url]
• To discover more interesting advertising-related content, check out what's floating around on StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: 1984, ads, chronicle, ferris bueller
Companies: apple, honda

Doubleplusungood: That Copy Of 1984 On Your Kindle Is Now Gone

from the you-never-had-that-book... dept

For quite some time we've been pointing out the simple fact that, unlike with a physical book, you don't really own the ebooks that you buy on your Amazon Kindle. Even worse, Amazon can simply delete them at will. In fact, that's exactly what's happened to (of all books!) George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm. Talk about irony. People who legitimately purchased those books discovered that they're now gone, as the publisher has decided that ebook versions were doubleplusungood and should never have existed in the first place. So, like the war with Eurasia, the book is now just a figment of your imagination. You never had it. At least Amazon refunded the money, but what kind of book do you buy that gets automatically disappeared? eBooks are an interesting concept, but how can anyone buy into something where their books might suddenly disappear? Update: The NY Times is now reporting that Amazon says it will change its system so that, in the future, books won't be deleted. However, that's not making many customers happy. They seem pretty pissed off -- with some noting that Amazon's own terms of service claim that you have a permanent right to the content once you've bought it. On top of that, the Times quotes a student who had taken a bunch of notes, which Amazon destroyed as well.

Filed Under: 1984, ebooks, george orwell, kindle, ownership
Companies: amazon