Amazon Noir

I think I understand the theoretical "ideas" behind the Amazon Noir project as well as anyone (questioning the validity of copyright, etc.) and I even sympathize with these ideas in many ways (for example, I defend the rights of artists to "remix" or "mashup" published material to create new art).

However, the Amazon Noir project, which consisted of subverting Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" feature to reassemble and redistribute entire books, then extorting money out of Amazon in exchange for not publicizing the technique's details. This seems to me like a criminal act more that conceptual art, but what bothers me most is that it is the kind of behavior that destroys what is good about the Internet, namely the easy availability of information for free.

I use Amazon's "Search Inside" feature almost every day. I often use it to make a final decision about buying a book. Often, searching inside shows me that I do not in fact want the book, but equally often, it gets me to buy a book from an author I do not know and whose book I would never buy blind. It is of mutual benefit to me and to Amazon– a classis win-win exchange.

This feature allows me in particular (and I note that Amazon.France was a target of the Amazon Noir campaign) to examine French books which I have no way of looking at in real life, being in the US. It also allows me to get books I need when I am too ill to go to a bricks and mortar store. Internationalizing culture and providing remote access to the disabled are extremely valuable services provided by the Internet, and these opportunities are jeopardized by irresponsible and arrogant projects such as Amazon Noir.

The "Search Inside" feature asks publishers to risk a small loss of sales from people who get all they want online and do not buy the book in exchange for potentially greater sales and goodwill from customers who use the feature to find and buy exactly what they need. It is a loosening of the stranglehold of copyright, and as such should be applauded by opponents of copyright. Actions such as Amazon Noir only serve to tighten the grip with which publishers will hold on to their proprietary data.

Millie Niss
www.sporkworld.org