Ken WhiteIn reacting to the news that a publisher made politically correct language edits to the R.L. Stine Goosebumps books, please consider maintaining some self-respect and perspective.
Proxima Centauri@Popehat Politically correct airbrush.
Coach Bo@Popehat lmao these people are smooth brains.
mdunc11
Riley S. Faelan@Popehat: Ironically, USSR did not have "cultural commissars". The concept is largely a talk radio / right-wing press invention.
USSR had "people's commissars", which were essentially government ministers. English-language texts sometimes translate into 'political commissars' the word политрук 'politruk' that would be best translated as 'political instructors", from Russian рука for hand, since the Russian word for 'instructor' means literally 'hand-walker', as in the metaphor of holding the hand of a little child while walking with them; those people were not supposed to make policy decisions but to implement them.
@Popehat: So, I reread what I wrote, and perhaps a point of clarification is in order:
USSR definitely had censors, and Glavlit, and all that totalitarian shit, but it was not structured anything like National Review pretended. In other words, it had plenty of stuff worthy of harsh criticism, but talking about "cultural commissars", the American right-wing press didn't criticise the real shitty stuff, they made up fictional shitty stuff and criticised that.
The Nerdy Mel@Popehat I wish more people understood that it's not about revision so much as it is about retaining the copyright.
@TheNerdyMel I find myself skeptical about this explanation.
Eva Chanda@Popehat @TheNerdyMel I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of the article is that these revisions *can't* extend the copyright, but are made in hopes of maximizing sales/profits before the work has to go into the public domain. However, in pharma, companies routinely extend drug patent protection by cooking up “new and improved” formulations for when the original expires & can go generic.
Ehproque has moved@erchanda @Popehat @TheNerdyMel how does this work? Can somebody else still sell the original as a generic?
@ehproque @Popehat @TheNerdyMel TLDR: Patent marketing exclusivity for a brand-name drug expires after 5 yrs: generics can then draw off up to 90% of sales. They don't have to redo all FDA testing but they do have to show pharmaceutical equivalence: identical molecule with same purity, strength, stability, and quality as the original. But a brand-name drug can get an extra 3 yrs of exclusivity for a new formulation (e.g. extended-release capsule) or disease for which it can be used.
@ehproque @Popehat @TheNerdyMel But I don't think there's a similar extension for copyrights (though US extended it fr 75 to 95 yrs for all in 1998).
Jargoggles@Popehat
Making spoopy children's books more inclusive is literally 1984.
Making spoopy children's books more inclusive is literally 1984.
Rob needs sci-fi 🚀🛸@Popehat don’t you just hate it when a mediocre white male conservative whiner forgets the difference between protected speech and free market capitalism? Coincidentally it only seems to happen when a person they agree with is mildly criticized by consumers for saying something stupid. These fucking people suck.
@daltonator I'm sorry but my sense is that interacting with you will give me a brain bleed.
@Popehat fair enough.
@Popehat I mean, I’m a cynical pessimist who thinks America has maybe ten years left. I’d avoid me too. For what it’s worth I enjoyed our interactions on Twitter. If you’d rather not talk to me any further I’d totally get it.
@daltonator I'm with you on people sucking, unclear about your meaning on protected speech vs. capitalism, and having a stroke over the issue of how you can't force targets to testify in the grand jury
@Popehat dude was comparing the actions of a private company to political overreach by corrupt government, is all I’m saying.
And I know Jack and Shit about law, but I do know that fucking scumbags like trump always seem to be untouchable by it.
@daltonator I'm still unsettled about the grand jury thing but on the other thing I lost track of which thread I was in, which was why your comment didn't make sense to me, my apologies. You're absolutely right.
@Popehat s’alright. I’ll leave the law rage to you.
Lizard@Popehat IIRC, Stine said, in effect, "Fuck that noise!" and has, thus far, not been sent to a work camp in Alaska for his defiance.
Which might not be the case if he lived in Florida, where it's the government mandating censorship. Unlike a publisher, governments, like moose bites, can be pretti nasti.
I will be happy when I can express outrage at the namby-pamby blue-nosed prigs in the private sector, because the government no longer poses a far more serious threat that requires most of my sparse energy and attention. As long as people are threatened with *actual jail* because they let kids read a book about penguin adoption or watch an episode of Benny Hill, I consider any petty Comstockery on the part of publishers to be of far less concern. And those more outraged about private editorial decisions than government laws are definitely looked at askance.
@LizardSF I would like to see some follow-up stories about whether, as I suspect, Stine found out his contract with them lets them do that.
@Popehat Given the people who write publisher's contracts are usually the people who have a single wish prepared as a 40-page run-on sentence just in case they find a genie in their D&D game, I'm guessing, yes. But he might be a big enough name to have declared his own terms. I am sure we'll see.
Avram Grumer
koberulz@Popehat As someone who has spent hours remuxing LaserDisc and DVD audio tracks with Blu-ray video so I can watch films in the highest possible quality without being subjected to godawful surround sound remixes of films made in mono, or Atmos remixes of films made in 5/7.1 (or worse, mono), I definitely understand the sentiment if not the choice of analogy.
John O’Donnell@Popehat
These are the same people who ban books, but never see the connection.
These are the same people who ban books, but never see the connection.