Swear Words in e-Books
Once you buy a (physical) book, it’s yours not only to read but also to edit (e.g. you are free to underline or strike out parts or add your own comments). The Kindle allows you to do the same with e-books (except that you can’t strike out anything). An app called Clean Reader swaps out swear words from your e-books (‘breast’ might become ‘chest’ and so on). Charlie Stross feels this goes too far : “(As an author, he) deeply resents the idea of his books being mutilated to fit the prejudices of a curious reader's blue-nosed and over-protective parents.” Cory Doctorow argues that one has the right to like or dislike such an app, but one cannot ask that it be banned for mangling what the author wrote. After all, even if you banned such an app, Doctorow asks whether readers won’t find equivalent info anyway? He cites this example: “Imagine a website ("ebooktriggerw1arnings.com") that indexed all the pages you should skip if you have experienced trauma and wan...