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Amazon Patents Changing Authors' Words

Posted by samzenpus on from the it-was-a-good-time-it-was-a-bad-time dept.

theodp writes "To exist or not to exist: that is the query. That's what the famous Hamlet soliloquy might look like if subjected to Amazon's newly-patented System and Method for Marking Content, which calls for 'programmatically substituting synonyms into distributed text content,' including 'books, short stories, product reviews, book or movie reviews, news articles, editorial articles, technical papers, scholastic papers, and so on' in an effort to uniquely identify customers who redistribute material. In its description of the 'invention,' Amazon also touts the use of 'alternative misspellings for selected words' as a way to provide 'evidence of copyright infringement in a legal action.' After all, anti-piracy measures should trump kids' ability to spell correctly, shouldn't they?"

6 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Patentable? by OnlyPostsWhilstDrunk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This bugs me about patents. This sounds like an exact copy of what they've done with maps for years. They add/remove/rename tiny roads in the middle of nowhere and if you distribute maps with those roads then they know you copied their stuff.

    Everything is a damn patent these days. Yo dawg, I put a clock in your clock so I can sue you while you check the time.

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    Sig: I don't spell check and this is legit. This was written while I was drunk, and quite possibly with m eyes closed, b
  2. Don't shop amazon if you like artistic integrity! by plasmacutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A synonym is not reflective of the intent of the author.

    As Al Franken points out, 'friendly' is a synonym for 'intimate', so coulter obviously stated she was having a trist with franken when asked by a reporter!

    Authors choose their diction carefully, at least good ones do, and that should not be tampered with.

    Lesson learned: do not shop at amazon if you respect artistic integrity.

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    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
  3. It's not about the patent, it's about the lying by localroger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's an heretical thing when mapmakers do it, lying (even trivially) and corrupting their craft because of the threat of being copied. It should not be tolerated there nor should the practice claimed by this patent application be tolerated, not because the patent is bad but because the practice itself is an affront to all of us.

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    1. Re:It's not about the patent, it's about the lying by Techmeology · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pirates can work together. Suppose you have ten pirates. They each download a copy of the book. They then compare their copies with each other - crosschecking them (after, of course, stripping the DRM). Nine of the ten books use "to be or not to be", and one uses "to exist or not to exist", and similarly for other words. They may then produce a more accurate copy of the book. So now, instead of pirate versions being technically superior (due to the lack of DRM), they're also more accurate! Well done, Amazon, you've patented a wonderful scheme to ensure people don't trust genuine products! Normally I am very anti-intellectual property. On this occasion, however, I do hope Amazon is granted it and enforces it. Perhaps it would some day prevent someone else doing the same.

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      Excuse for why is your room always messy?
  4. If I was an author . . . by Tanman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I was an author who had slaved a year over a book, and anyone but my editor (with my approval on each change) altered my precious words and distributed it as my work, I'd sue the pants off of them. It'd be like if someone was selling prints of my painting and changing a brush stroke. You just don't do that. Words are the author's paint.

  5. The logical progression by Impeesa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If this becomes widespread, here's how it'll go: first, pirate groups will only have to pay for/obtain a couple extra copies, and come up with an automated reconstruction system that will compare the copies and perform error correction. Then the publishers will start obfuscating things more and more, and the pirate groups will develop more and more advanced algorithms. Eventually, the publishers will be publishing near-100% noise, with their heads too far up their asses to realize it, the only people buying copies will be the dedicated pirate groups, who will afford it by charging for their services, and before you know it, "content miners" will just be another step in the chain. The establishment is just last generation's rebels, am I right?