<story><title>Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-seuss-books-deemed-offensive-will-be-delisted-from-ebay-11614884201</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>NeverFade</author><text>Amazon has started to remove books on political grounds as well: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncac.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;amazon-book-removal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncac.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;amazon-book-removal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Dr. Seuss books were banned not just by eBay but also by their publisher, which holds the copyright, so you can still buy them used on Amazon... for $1,500+ per copy: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wane.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;prices-skyrocket-for-dr-seuss-books-on-amazon&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wane.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;prices-skyrocket-for-dr-seuss-book...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The reality is that these books will not be accessible to the vast majority of future American readers. This is just a fact at this point.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t even matter if Amazon keeps selling them, as the publisher banned them, so the number of (legal) copies will dwindle to zero. Also, with Amazon starting to ban books on similar political grounds, saying &amp;quot;but Amazon didn&amp;#x27;t ban &lt;i&gt;this&lt;/i&gt; specific book (yet)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;you can still get a copy at some obscure second-hand stores&amp;quot; is burying our heads in the sand and ignoring the reality of what is happening.</text></item><item><author>UncleMeat</author><text>&amp;gt; These are huge book distributors like Amazon and eBay effectively deciding what people can and cannot read.&lt;p&gt;The books are available on Amazon.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; This is book-banning, pure and simple.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d wager that sales of these six books will be higher in the next week than they were in the last two years combined.</text></item><item><author>NeverFade</author><text>These are market-dominating book distributors like Amazon and eBay effectively deciding what people can and cannot read.&lt;p&gt;The fact that a few people might still be able to view images of these books (illegally, as they are copyrighted) on some tiny closed forum on the internet isn&amp;#x27;t a real comfort.&lt;p&gt;In the Soviet Union, there were also tiny isolated pockets where &amp;quot;forbidden books&amp;quot; were surreptitiously copied and read. However, the project to ban them was still very successful overall. The average subject of the Soviet regime would not have access to these books.&lt;p&gt;This is very much what is happening in the US right now. These books are being banned, and the next generations of US readers will have no access to them. The fact that one person in ten thousand might be able to find a used copy at a rare used bookstore (and pay pay thousands of dollars for it) doesn&amp;#x27;t really change anything, and it&amp;#x27;s dishonest to pretend otherwise.&lt;p&gt;This is book-banning, pure and simple.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;The actions of the publisher and ebay enhance the first (freedom from)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to thank our cultural commissars at Amazon and eBay for &amp;quot;freeing&amp;quot; us from dangerous ideas by forcibly preventing us from buying and selling the books which contain them.&lt;p&gt;eBay just took away the freedom of private individuals to sell books they legally own to each other.&lt;p&gt;You are calling this &amp;quot;freedom&amp;quot;, using the word to refer to its exact opposite. This is Newspeak.</text></item><item><author>helsinkiandrew</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to.&lt;p&gt;These are some children&amp;#x27;s books that contain illustrations that some people find offensive and the publisher (and sellers) are deciding they no longer want to be associated with and sell to children.  There are internet forums where the images are available and people can view them without the police knocking your door down, and I&amp;#x27;m sure these are available in 2nd hand bookshops.&lt;p&gt;The actions of the publisher and ebay enhance the first (freedom from) without inhibiting the second much (freedom to) for those that really want to view the images.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a difference between &amp;quot;utterly repugnant&amp;quot; content being available and it being casually given to children, and people and companies being forced to sell it.</text></item><item><author>lgleason</author><text>As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here.&lt;p&gt;Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don&amp;#x27;t stand up for everyones ability (including views you do not like) to freely speak, the censorship will end up being turned against you.&lt;p&gt;The key things with all of this, is that if enough people were to collectively have the courage to push back against this craziness it would stop...people recognizing that there is a problem is a good first step.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dr_dshiv</author><text>Isn&amp;#x27;t this more of a matter of copyright and, specifically, the moral rights of authors and copyright holders to control their work? It&amp;#x27;s not that ebay is so offended—it&amp;#x27;s that Dr Seuss Enterprises doesn&amp;#x27;t want to lose billions due to a tarnished legacy. (Oops!) To me, this is just like a mature author that wants to stop the sale of an embarrassing early book because it was poorly written. In this case, the rightsholder thinks the early books are in poor taste and no longer wants them associated with the brand.&lt;p&gt;For the record, the same whitewashing (wokewashing?) happened to the Richard Scarry books which are all &amp;quot;abridged&amp;quot; because they were so offensively conservative about the role of women.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.upworthy.com&amp;#x2F;8-changes-that-were-made-to-a-classic-richard-scarry-book-to-keep-up-with-the-times-progress&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.upworthy.com&amp;#x2F;8-changes-that-were-made-to-a-class...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-seuss-books-deemed-offensive-will-be-delisted-from-ebay-11614884201</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>NeverFade</author><text>Amazon has started to remove books on political grounds as well: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncac.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;amazon-book-removal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ncac.org&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;amazon-book-removal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Dr. Seuss books were banned not just by eBay but also by their publisher, which holds the copyright, so you can still buy them used on Amazon... for $1,500+ per copy: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wane.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;prices-skyrocket-for-dr-seuss-books-on-amazon&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wane.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;prices-skyrocket-for-dr-seuss-book...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The reality is that these books will not be accessible to the vast majority of future American readers. This is just a fact at this point.&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t even matter if Amazon keeps selling them, as the publisher banned them, so the number of (legal) copies will dwindle to zero. Also, with Amazon starting to ban books on similar political grounds, saying &amp;quot;but Amazon didn&amp;#x27;t ban &lt;i&gt;this&lt;/i&gt; specific book (yet)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;you can still get a copy at some obscure second-hand stores&amp;quot; is burying our heads in the sand and ignoring the reality of what is happening.</text></item><item><author>UncleMeat</author><text>&amp;gt; These are huge book distributors like Amazon and eBay effectively deciding what people can and cannot read.&lt;p&gt;The books are available on Amazon.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; This is book-banning, pure and simple.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d wager that sales of these six books will be higher in the next week than they were in the last two years combined.</text></item><item><author>NeverFade</author><text>These are market-dominating book distributors like Amazon and eBay effectively deciding what people can and cannot read.&lt;p&gt;The fact that a few people might still be able to view images of these books (illegally, as they are copyrighted) on some tiny closed forum on the internet isn&amp;#x27;t a real comfort.&lt;p&gt;In the Soviet Union, there were also tiny isolated pockets where &amp;quot;forbidden books&amp;quot; were surreptitiously copied and read. However, the project to ban them was still very successful overall. The average subject of the Soviet regime would not have access to these books.&lt;p&gt;This is very much what is happening in the US right now. These books are being banned, and the next generations of US readers will have no access to them. The fact that one person in ten thousand might be able to find a used copy at a rare used bookstore (and pay pay thousands of dollars for it) doesn&amp;#x27;t really change anything, and it&amp;#x27;s dishonest to pretend otherwise.&lt;p&gt;This is book-banning, pure and simple.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;The actions of the publisher and ebay enhance the first (freedom from)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I would also like to thank our cultural commissars at Amazon and eBay for &amp;quot;freeing&amp;quot; us from dangerous ideas by forcibly preventing us from buying and selling the books which contain them.&lt;p&gt;eBay just took away the freedom of private individuals to sell books they legally own to each other.&lt;p&gt;You are calling this &amp;quot;freedom&amp;quot;, using the word to refer to its exact opposite. This is Newspeak.</text></item><item><author>helsinkiandrew</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to.&lt;p&gt;These are some children&amp;#x27;s books that contain illustrations that some people find offensive and the publisher (and sellers) are deciding they no longer want to be associated with and sell to children.  There are internet forums where the images are available and people can view them without the police knocking your door down, and I&amp;#x27;m sure these are available in 2nd hand bookshops.&lt;p&gt;The actions of the publisher and ebay enhance the first (freedom from) without inhibiting the second much (freedom to) for those that really want to view the images.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a difference between &amp;quot;utterly repugnant&amp;quot; content being available and it being casually given to children, and people and companies being forced to sell it.</text></item><item><author>lgleason</author><text>As dis-heartening as this story is, compared to a couple of years ago, it is encouraging to see lots of comments from people beginning to wake up to what is going on with this craziness and not being modded here.&lt;p&gt;Free speech is about protecting the right of the un-popular and views that some may find utterly repugnant. Why? because, as we are seeing with all of the woke craziness, when you don&amp;#x27;t stand up for everyones ability (including views you do not like) to freely speak, the censorship will end up being turned against you.&lt;p&gt;The key things with all of this, is that if enough people were to collectively have the courage to push back against this craziness it would stop...people recognizing that there is a problem is a good first step.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>XorNot</author><text>If the publisher shutdown and the IP on the books went into legal limbo, then the exact same thing would happen - has happened - to numerous works. For example try to get the Sid Meier Alpha Centauri novelizations - they&amp;#x27;re almost impossible to find, they&amp;#x27;re out of print (they&amp;#x27;re expensive as hell on ebay).&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s been a problem for &lt;i&gt;years&lt;/i&gt; that there&amp;#x27;s been so redress available when a publisher either owns an IP and refuses to sell or license it freely, or when an IP falls into unclear ownership and the same basic thing results.&lt;p&gt;This all has nothing to do with anything political (because these are not being suppressed by a government, and citizens and organizations are free to choose their own speech and associations) and &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt; to do with just how garbage copyright law is.</text></comment>