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
