Who controls the text?

Kindle ignites anger among e-book lovers

By David Daniels and ChristianWeek | September 1, 2009

I didn't really give it much thought when I first encountered the question back in the late 1980s. Our local ministerial was discussing computer-driven Bible translation work. Computer software was taking years off the time involved in codifying an unwritten language, teaching its speakers to read it, then providing them with a copy of the Bible in that language.

As most of us extolled the benefits of this technology, one pastor asked, "But who controls the text?" He was concerned about the relative ease with which electronic text can be edited and deleted. "How would one control the integrity of the text if it could be changed by anyone on any computer?"

These days, as any computer-savvy person knows, e-documents can be secured so that editing, printing and even copying the text is virtually impossible. The well-designed e-document is as secure as any paper-based document can be. While it is true that an e-document can be deleted, one can also burn books. Whether the click of a button or the strike of a match, the end result is the same.

Questions about controlling a text never really garnered much of my attention until I read Brian Bethune's column, "You buy a book but don't own it? (Macleans August 17, 2009). He was commenting on the stealth with which online book retailer Amazon quietly removed two titles by George Orwell (Animal Farm and 1984) from its customers' Kindle electronic reading devices.

On July 17, having learned it did not have the legal write to sell these e-books, Amazon, using the same Whispernet wireless network that enables its customers to download purchased titles, reached into each customer's reading device and deleted the e-books in question. And while their accounts were credited, the customers were unaware this had happened.

Bethune highlights the growing realization among Kindle users that they do not really own the e-books they purchase. The license attached to every purchase means customers have something more akin to a lifetime rental agreement. Further, as Bethune notes: "The [license] agreement says Amazon may modify the software as it wishes and bars owners from tampering with its digital rights management, the protocols by which Amazon governs its relationships with publishers and customers." Amazon's digital rights management (DRM) software prohibits purchasers of Kindle-based e-documents, according to Bethune, "from copying or reselling e-books."

Bethune's column reminded me of that question from 20 years ago: "Who controls the text?" Kindle owners are discovering that Amazon can, and surely one day again will, reach into privately-owned Kindle devices to delete an e-book—the 21st century equivalent of a book-burning. The ability to reach into a device and delete a document surely means that the company could also look over your shoulder to see what you are reading. Surely there are significant privacy issues here.

As you can imagine, journalists, bloggers and a host of privacy watchdogs have flooded the media with views, pro and con, about DRM technology in general and Amazon's actions in particular.

Though an unabashed lover of the printed page, I recognize the immense benefits of e-text. But I'm also sceptical of the crass commercialism that inevitably follows every technological advance. For example, Bethune reports that two Amazon patent applications involve technologies enabling Amazon to insert advertising in various "On-Demand Generated Content." In other words, Kindle readers can expect, in the not-too-distant-future, e-books filled with ads.

Hugh D'Andrade, writing about the Amazon/Kindle issue on the Electronic Frontier Foundation site, says: "If people want books that won't evaporate on the orders of faceless bureaucrats, if they want their libraries to last, or the right to read privately, or if they want the same ability to share or loan books that they enjoy with printed books, they should avoid buying any book that can't be copied or any e-book reader with 'remote deletion' features" (Orwell in 2009: Dystopian Rights Management).

There are two major sites of which I am aware—undoubtedly there are many more—where one can find e-books with this kind of freedom: The Christian Classics Ethereal Library and Project Gutenberg. Both sites offer a life-time of reading without the restrictions of Kindle. You will find great reading available in several formats. You can download, copy, print and share without, in D'Andrade's words, "an Amazon Big Brother on board."