Posted on 08/19/2019 9:06:26 AM PDT by DFG
In George Orwell’s “1984,” the classics of literature are rewritten into Newspeak, a revision and reduction of the language meant to make bad thoughts literally unthinkable. “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words,” one true believer exults.
Now some of the writer’s own words are getting reworked in Amazon’s vast virtual bookstore, a place where copyright laws hold remarkably little sway. Orwell’s reputation may be secure, but his sentences are not.
Over the last few weeks I got a close-up view of this process when I bought a dozen fake and illegitimate Orwell books from Amazon. Some of them were printed in India, where the writer is in the public domain, and sold to me in the United States, where he is under copyright.
Others were straightforward counterfeits, like the edition of his memoir “Down and Out in Paris and London” that was edited for high school students. The author’s estate said it did not give permission for the book, printed by Amazon’s self-publishing subsidiary. Some counterfeiters are going as far as to claim Orwell’s classics as their own property, copyrighting them with their own names.
(Excerpt) Read more at enmnews.com ...
Very informative article, and worth reading to the end.
It’s getting to where you have to be careful when shopping at Amazon, that you are buying the real thing, and not a deceptive fake.
IMHO, Amazon has not been doing enough of the store owners due diligence, to ensure that the buyer is not ripped off by deceptive marketing.
IIRC Orwell’s estate sued Apple over the 1984 commercial.
And every year at this time, Chicago lawyer Bill Coulson thinks about what’s wrong with that historical record and the ways he might try to correct it. The thoughts have a little extra urgency this year, with Orwell’s “1984” being widely reread by people who fear the worst about Donald Trump’s presidency.
Chicago attorney William Coulson has been working for years to set the record straight on Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl ad.
Chicago attorney William Coulson has been working for years to set the record straight on Apple’s “1984” Super Bowl ad. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Coulson’s specialty is intellectual property, and Apple, he has been on a lonely crusade to let people know, violated it by appropriating scenes and themes from Orwell’s novel for its own commercial purposes.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-apple-1984-ad-myths-ent-0205-20170201-column.html
Have they rewritten it yet to claim that the danger is not the state but individualism and non-conformity?
How much of a brain-dead leftist does one have to be to associate 1984 with Trump, when Orwell says that Big Brother is the head of INGSOC, which he explicitly explains is Newspeak for “English Socialism”?
I really do hope some Trump haters read the book because they might get their eyes opened about how socialist societies work in practice.
I think that if Orwell were alive today he would marvel at the genius of the newspeak bureaucrats having their work done by what is meant to appear as objective private sector journalists. It’s sorta like a newspeak information and censorship laundering front.
Often the problem with drastic socialism has been the increasing need for oppressive totalitarian control to maintain it, which further breeds resentment and the eventual outcome of collapse or revolution. But if your propaganda doesn’t come from state run print or TV, then you can buffer to focus of the resentment.
I admit to being somewhat relieved that nearly everything was likely due to translation or mistakes (though not all as that article points out)
The bigger problem is that at some point, people will begin changing the wording deliberately. And being untethered from the truth, it is a certainty that over time, the original will be deliberately misrepresented to support a particular viewpoint.
If Leftists have their way, it WILL happen.
The irony.
When I first read 1984 many years ago, I never thought I’d be living it......
So many of the books of yesteryear are becoming the reality of today. In 100 years I am sure that Orwell will not be viewed as a fiction writer, but more as a prophet. When we look at what is happening to free speech, how long until Farenheit 451 becomes reality.
Messing with language is doubleplusungood!
And in a similar vein of thought: Do I want to shop at Amazon anymore? And if I look at the future; I find that Amazon is the future. My choices are of little regard.
I always try to buy older books in the earlier editions where possible for exactly this type of issue.
I have found a few “edits to correct errors/omissions” that completely changed the character of the original thought.
I bought a book from another author which was nothing more than the Project Gutenberg version printed by Amazon. They didn’t even bother to relabel the original table of contents with the new pagination.
We watched a version of Billy Jack last weekend. It was sliced to pieces to turn an R rated movie into PG. Total drek. No warning label anywhere on the box. The memory chute is everywhere.
I read this article earlier today. It is both chilling and prescient in it’s analysis.
Hell, the left have effectively rewritten creation so what is a little 1984 but an inkblot.
It was one of her early paintings, but she did it without my input so it clearly shows two things: I talk a lot about certain books....and secondly...she listens...:)
I have heard it said, and understand the context passionately: "Leftists think Orwell's "1984" is an instructional manual, not a cautionary tale."
LOL, kind of reminds me of the same reaction when he said he saw “Pulp Fiction” on network television, and my shocked response was “Really? How on earth did they do that?”
He said “They didn’t. It made the movie unwatchable.”
She's very good.
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