Friday, August 15, 2014

Orwell estate hits back at Amazon's corporate 'doublespeak'

Internet retailer accused of using tactics from Orwell's 1984 in war of words with the publisher Hachette

George Orwell
George Orwell: 'If other publishers had any sense they would combine against [Penguin] and suppress them.' Photograph: Vernon Richards Estate

Representatives of George Orwell have described Amazon's selective quoting of the Nineteen Eighty-Four author as "dystopian and shameless" and "as close as one can get to the Ministry of Truth and its doublespeak".
Amazon turned to Orwell for support in its long-running and public clash over ebook terms with the publisher Hachette at the weekend, comparing their battle over ebook pricing ("We want lower ebook prices. Hachette does not") to the fight Penguin had when it introduced cheap paperbacks in the 1930s.
"The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if 'publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them'," wrote Amazon in a letter to readers. "Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion."

But the full quote from Orwell runs: "The Penguin books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them." The discrepancy has been pointed out by a host of websites. "It's clear that Orwell is praising the paperback, not arguing for its abolition," wrote TechCrunch. "Only a fool or a businessman would twist that quote so completely. But that's exactly what Amazon did and that's horrible."

Bill Hamilton, a literary agent at AM Heath and the executor of the Orwell estate, has now written to the New York Times to say that "Amazon is using George Orwell's name in vain".
"It quotes Orwell out of context as supporting a campaign to suppress paperbacks, to give specious 
authority to its campaign against publishers over ebook pricing; and having gotten as much capital as it can out of waving around Orwell's name,
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