Books With "Questionable Content" Being Deleted From ebookstores In Sweeping Ban 548
Nate the greatest writes "The Kernel started an uproar last week when they 'discovered' that the Kindle Store and other ebookstores sell adult content in the erotica category. None of the content is actually illegal, but it is icky enough that the major ebookstores decided to respond by removing anything even vaguely questionable. Unfortunately, they went too far, resulting in an act of censorship the likes of which we haven't seen since Paypal went after the indie ebook distributor Smashwords. The Daily Mail reports that WH Smith went so far as to shut down their website with the promise that it won't reopen until all self-published titles have been removed, and according to BBC News, B&N is also deleting content. Numerous authors have reported on KBoards that Amazon and B&N have removed far more than just the titles that feature questionable content like pseudo-incest; they appear to be running keyword searches and removing any title that mentions innocuous words like babysitter, sister, or teenager. And they're not the only ones; there's a new report that Kobo has jumped on the ban wagon as well."
Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:4, Insightful)
Who decides? Isn't this a Shade of Grey here? Think that book will get banned as well, as popular as it is? (never read it and never will, but am aware of its cultural significance)
LOL. Only men erotica get banned. Didn't you got the memo? Feminism is the official doctrine of the state; women good, men bad. Simple as that.
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Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Funny)
Speaking of. Who the fuck is "The Kernel", anyway?
You might have heard about his fried chicken...
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You're confusing right-wing conservative nutjobs with Republican Christian nutjobs, who are neither right-wing nor particularly conservative in the sense of smaller government and more liberty.
As to your main point, you probably know a lot of third-wave feminists. Sex-positive feminism is certainly a thing, but it is hardly unopposed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_Sex_Wars [wikipedia.org]
What "conservative" means (Score:5, Informative)
"Conservative" does not mean "favoring smaller government and more liberty"; that's "libertarian".
"Conservative" means "favoring things as they once were; opposing change".*
It's a mere historical coincidence that in recent history, change has been away from smaller government, and so libertarianism became conservative.
In older eras, change was toward smaller government, and conservatives were in favor of preserving the authority of the church and state. The Christian nutjobs still pine for those "good old days", and that makes them even more conservative than the libertarian type of conservative.
*(Strictly speaking "conservative" should be distinguished from "reactionary" in that the former favors preserving things as they are now, and the latter favors bringing back things that used to be, in which case all of the aforementioned "conservatives" are really "reactionaries" since society has already changed away from the way they wish it still was).
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:5, Insightful)
Erotica and romance novels are two completely different categories. Romance novels usually have some sort of plot or story that would function just fine without the smut. Erotica (aka plot? what plot?) would suffer as a story with the smut stripped out because it takes up the bulk of the content.
Romance is what women use to masturbate whereas erotica is what men use. That's been my experience of what the definition of the two are when it comes to policy.
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:5, Funny)
Women want more (about 200 pages) foreplay than men, what else is new?
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:4, Insightful)
Romance novels usually contain erotica.
As for government, a wise man (don't make me slap you) once said, "Poor is the man whose pleasure depends on the permission of another."
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:5, Insightful)
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I am pretty sure their is no such thing as erotic literature for men, erotic novels are a synonym for romance novels, which is just a fancy way of saying lady porn.
I guess in the billions of books out their, there must be some erotic ones aimed at men, but hardly enough to be labeled a category. If erotic literature for men existed in any major form I am pretty sure I would be aware of it.
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:5, Informative)
Someone was clearly brain damaged by high school. MOST literature contains sex. Certainly nearly all of the good stuff. This is because most humans have sex in their lives. It makes it important in narratives about humans. Joyce's Ulysses includes a guy masturbating in the bushes while perving on a cripple and a vivid description of a rimjob. Gravity's Rainbow is basically a 760 page dick joke. The Sound and the Fury is all about how women's liberation (promiscuity in Faulkner's mind) affected Southern men. McCarthy's Child of God has graphic descriptions of necrophilia. Very few major novels since the 1950s have been vague about sex. Even before then it was almost always there (what did you think the entire conflict of The Sun Also Rises was, or Dorian Gray, or Whitman's poetry?), it just wasn't as explicit or graphic.
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:5, Insightful)
have you actually READ any of the "romance" novels? romanticizing adultery? yeah that's there. lewd descriptions of sex? yeah that's there. just general descriptions about hot nights? yeah most definitely there.
ladies magazines and mens xxx mags stories are pretty much the same. what's the difference otherwise? well, the pictures of course. and that in the womens magazines half the articles are about how to get laid(the rest of the articles are just indirectly about it).
oh and they would NOT function without the smut. not by a long shot. how the fuck do you make a story about being an (american)indian in 16th century raped(romantically-consensually) by a sensuel colonist function without the smut about fondling breasts and being fucked while tied up?? turn a 4 page novellette into one paragraph??
lady of camellias is something that sort of works without the smut, by just implying the smut. the cheap stuff on womens magazines.. not so much.
oh and the only way to enjoy those stories is to get some hot chicks to read them whilst sipping wine(in university, IT guild ftw). it's better if you get some late victorian style smut though..
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:4, Insightful)
Haha. You're retarded. Erotica means whatever the person using the word wants it to mean. That's everything from straight up fapfiction to extremely well written stories that happen to have explicit sex.
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:5, Funny)
Erotica is when you use a feather. Pornography is when you use the whole chicken.
IIRC, this is from Terry Pratchett
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're over playing the difference.
Erotica: Introductory paragraph -> Sex.
Romance: Introductory paragraph -> Foreplay -> Sex.
I wouldn't make much of it.
Re:Romance and Erotica is not the same (Score:4, Interesting)
This is pretty close to correct, I'd say, but it's a *literary* analysis. Erotica, category romance, and romantic fiction are *marketing* categories.
Category romances are formula driven. More than any other kind of genre fiction, category romance about guaranteeing a *repeatable* reading experience. So category romance publishers have very specific parameters for each of their imprints, such as (real examples here) "features a young heroine who is sexually awakened but inexperienced," or "Strong, gorgeous, medical professional heroes at the top of their game with hearts of gold, and heroines to match." If enjoy one Harlequin® Medical Romance (no joke -- they're serious about meaningful branding), the editors go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that you'll like the next one you'll pick up. If you're the sort of reader who might purchase a Harlequin® Love Inspired (Harlequin's Christian Romance line) novel, you can be certain it doesn't contain any unpleasant surprises.
In the romance publishing business what sets apart "erotica" from category romance with an erotic elements is that all important "happily ever after" ending. Having a romantic story that ends happily isn't enough, it's got to be "happily ever after" which is something different. And the story has got to get there following the particular imprint's formula. I actually respect that. They're not my cup of tea, but category romances retell myths that people want to hear over and over again. That's really no different than endlessly rehashing the hero's journey in fantasy literature. The challenge for any writer of genre fiction is to renew the myth; to bring it to life for the people who want to experience it.
As for the erotica market, I have done book critiques for a friend who writes stuff for that market, even though her stuff makes me want to flush my eyes with bleach. I don't think the market for non-romance erotica is as elaborately segmented as for romance, but I think it will get there. My erotica-writing friend has a lot of fans, enough to put her on the NY Times best seller list, albeit briefly, but that's outstanding for a genre novel. And they clearly like reading about sexual acts in graphic detail: kinky stuff with restraints and pain and multiple simultaneous penetrations. Yet they have nothing but contempt for "50 Shades" which they consider tasteless swill. It's pretty easy to see what their beef is in that case; the heroine of 50 shades is a "bottom" in BDSM-speak, and my friend's heroines are "tops" [wikipedia.org]. But there are other tribal divisions in the erotica fanbase whose explanation completely eludes me.
People try to divide science fiction from fantasy or romance from erotica from pornography, but ultimately the market isn't out literary ontologies; it's about matching up authors with readers who might enjoy their work. Suppose you're an author who's written an urban fantasy novel with erotic scenes and a happy ending. You could offer that very same story to Harlequin (a romance publisher), Exotica (an erotica publisher), or TOR Books (a traditional sci-fi and fantasy imprint of Macmillan). Any one of those publishers might take the book on, but what their editors ask you to do with it before it is published will be radically different.
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Insightful)
Who decides?
Sex, one of the Four Horsemen of the Info-pocalypse [counterfire.org]. Thin edge of the wedge stepping stone to more politically motivated types of censorship...
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:4, Funny)
"Sex is wrong unless done through a hole in a bed sheet."
Or a wall.
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Funny)
If you smoke after sex, you're doing it wrong.... or at least with insufficient lubrication.
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:4, Insightful)
Who decides?
The owner of the store. They don't have to have fair or consistent rules. Deal with it or start/support a new store with like minded people.
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Insightful)
Who decides?
The owner of the store. They don't have to have fair or consistent rules. Deal with it or start/support a new store with like minded people.
It's a little frustrating how true this is. Also a little frightening when you think about it. These huge companies have more power to control our speech than the government does because they are private entities. All you have to do is get a few big companies together to make a decision and you can enact a de-facto censorship regime by locking most out of the market.
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Insightful)
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The part that is more frightening is how small groups (almost always religious and conservative) seem to have disproportionate sway over how those companies behave.
About 75% of Americans identify as some sort of Christian. 1/3 of those are self-identified Catholic, and the other 2/3 are some other denomination. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a congregation that would speak out against this kind of censorship. Even individuals that may be personally interested in such content would not admit to that in front of their church-going peers (which is 3/4 of the entire nation before you include Jews & Muslims); especially if that meant admitting they were ok wi
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:4, Informative)
This started because of an expose by the Kernel. The Kernel is located in the UK. The Slashdot post then points out that WH Smith shut down their website. WH Smith is in the UK. The post also mentions a BBC report. I don't have to tell you where the BBC is located. Although Amazon and B&N are themselves world-wide, this is clearly instigated by and carried out by Europeans and British specifically, and by the media over there. Googling up "cnn amazon porn" brings up nothing recent (the same thing with BBC produces the appropriate articles).
What's this Americans stuff?
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that, even. WH Smith was moved to take action against its legal stock at the demand of the Daily Mail, more or less on its own. The Daily Mail is arguably the most extreme right-wing of the British press, and represents (via it's readership) a largish minority (but definitely a minority) of middle-class people who like a bit of moral outrage with their breakfast. Smiths will have taken its action to avoid losing a smallish but non-trivial portion of their customer base.
So, we have a situation where any organization which lacks scruples and represents a non-trivial number of customers can indirectly control the country through commerce.
Scary bananas.
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Until Paypal shuts 'em down.
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:5, Interesting)
Who decides?
The owner of the store. They don't have to have fair or consistent rules. Deal with it or start/support a new store with like minded people.
These are eBooks. Amazon has demonstrated that not only can they yank books you "bought" back, they will. And not just books with questionable moral value.
It's one of the reasons I don't deal with them anymore.
Re:Shade of Grey (lol) (Score:4, Interesting)
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Typical Slashdot bullshit. If I told you to start your own Apple or Microsoft you'd piss and moan about monopolies, regulations, ip laws, predatory business practices that would get in your way. But you have no qualms about telling someone unhappy with Amazon, B&N, etc... you would say "start your own book shop", "start your own health care company", "start your own hospital", or "start your own fucking space program" etc.... without even a CLUE that the predatory business practices and monopoly power
Dear MINISTRY OF TRUTH (Score:5, Insightful)
Please ban the following books as a threat to an Orderly Society. Also, the children. KThxBye!
* The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
* The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
* The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
* The Color Purple by Alice Walker
* Ulysses by James Joyce
* Beloved by Toni Morrison
* The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
* 1984 by George Orwell
* The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
* Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
* Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
* Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
* A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
* Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
* Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
* Animal Farm by George Orwell
* The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
* As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
* A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
* Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
* Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
* Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
* Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
* Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
* Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
* Native Son by Richard Wright
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
* Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
* For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
* On the Road by Jack Kerouac
* The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
* The Call of the Wild by Jack London
* To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
* Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
* Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
* The World According to Garp by John Irving
* All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
* A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
* The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Re:Dear MINISTRY OF TRUTH (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the Bible. There's some pretty racy stuff in there, and a lot of obviously socialistic stuff.
Re:Dear MINISTRY OF TRUTH (Score:5, Interesting)
Ezekiel 23:19-20:
(19)Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt (20)and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.
Or alternative translation:
(19)Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
(20)For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
Re:Dear MINISTRY OF TRUTH (Score:4, Funny)
Ezekiel 23:19-20:
(19)Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt (20)and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.
Or alternative translation:
(19)Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
(20)For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
Modern translation:
This cougar gave it up all over town and half the state, thinking she was some young trick. Back in the day, this ho had all kind of guys get up in her snizz. And they was hung like horses and came buckets.
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Fuck that. Words on a page are words on a page, and never should that be censored.
Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Fahrenheit 451?
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
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According to the Libertardians this could never happen, since the holy Free Market would prevent any such thing. This pretty much puts the lie to their entire religion.
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The temperature at which NAND memory burns!
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just like Fahrenheit 451, except without all the trouble of actually tracking down and burning the books. You just sit down at a computer, type a few commands, and you are done. No more pesky history books getting in the way of your world domination
Tired of this nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time we complete some sort of cycle, discover a new tribe, a new people, new nation or continent, new media, new format, new distribution whatever, there's always this stupid witch hunt. -Oh no a person is saying/writing/portraying things I don't agree with, this must stop right now. Democracy is bad. Censor that shit right away! -burn all those books.
To make it worse there's this pseudo fanatical craze to get rid of nudity with a passion but violence? not so much. somehow nudity is worse...reminds me of the MPAA rating system. Sure you can show blood, but the naked human body? are you out of your mind?!
This is always the problem with controlled distribution, formats and media. Someone decides what's best for you.
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To make it worse there's this pseudo fanatical craze to get rid of nudity with a passion but violence? not so much. somehow nudity is worse...reminds me of the MPAA rating system. Sure you can show blood, but the naked human body? are you out of your mind?!
In the US, maybe. In a lot of European countries, at least, there is a more relaxed approach to nudity and a greater abhorrence to depictions of violence.
Re:Tired of this nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with that much: where I disagree is that society as a whole needs to neuter itself to make absolutely sure they don't encounter anything which might turn them into perverts.
It's an important distinction: you need to understand the mindset of people you disagree with in order to convince them. Saying to them "Hey, prudes, violence is worse than sex" will at best make then include violence in with their censorship. The point you disagree with them on is that society should bend over backwards to accommodate children rather than leaving it up to parents to explain adult things to their kids. If kids don't have decent parents, they have bigger problems than seeing tits. It's probably still unlikely that you'll convince many people with that argument unfortunately, but I think it has a better shot of getting them to reconsider.
Re:Tired of this nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Kiss a pair of tits in a movie and it's X-Rated.
Chop 'em off and it's PG-13.
Re:Tired of this nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
X is the MAFIAA rating. The exes after that first one are marketing.
This is just like 1984! (Score:4, Funny)
I assume. I can't actually read it, it's banned because Wiston and Julia have sex while Big Brother is watching and that's incest or something.
As I warned about previously (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what digital books are going to get you , censorship, on the fly redactions and corrections to appeal to current political climates, and a simple refusal to sell anything that in anyway displeases the power elite.
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And yet several of my family members eagerly bought Kindles in spite of me carefully explaining this concept. I'm afraid the battle is already lost.
Re:As I warned about previously (Score:4, Interesting)
Hang on to them [aber.ac.uk] (Link is to the text of the Asimov short story "The Fun They Had").
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You do realize that you can store Amazon (or whatever) e-books in an open format with all the advantages of digital goodness?
I just use Calibre [calibre-ebook.com] and store the resultant file on my backup system. I'm betting that I'll be able to read a standard USB flash drive longer than some moldy paper.
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And do you realize that they must then be displayed on a screen to read, or printed out which means connection to a computer. Now I'll let you warm up your imagination, and think your way through it.
This repeated attitude that anyone who doesn't agree with you is just to stupid to have thought things through is getting pretty tiring. You can keep making pithy one-liner insults, or you can answer the issues that are being discussed here.
Now, particularly, so fucking what if a "computer" is used to look at content on a USB stick? That computer doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to do that, and even if it is connected to the Internet there is no requirement for the user to connect to the vendo
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Not to mention "downmodded for telling the truth"!
The solution is to distribute them under different business models, including not for profit.
Re:As I warned about previously (Score:5, Informative)
One person can do it to a hundred million. That's a big difference.
Re:As I warned about previously (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't buy my books from the people who made my device. WiFi is turned off on my dedicated e-reader, so no, they cant remove any content that i have placed there. ( and my tablet, they have zero access to in the first place )
Furthermore, all of my books come without DRM, or are stripped when i get them. If i cant strip it or buy it without, then i don't want it and wont buy it. Copies also get backed up in case the reader should die or be stolen, as even the most honest of vendors might go out of business..
I do not trust any of the 'service providers', and plan accordingly.
So, no more Game of Thrones, then? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because that's chock full of incest, and we wouldn't want to apply our arbitrary rules inconsistently, would we?
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Correct. We will apply our rules consistently for all books grossing less than, say, $500 000 per month?
Misplaced outrage (Score:2, Insightful)
Store owners are free to carry whatever books they want. This is a market opportunity.
Stop bitching and open your own store for these kinds of books (e-erotica? oof...). Evidently there's some space to make money here.
Re:Misplaced outrage (Score:4, Insightful)
Store owners are free to carry whatever books they want.
Not really. The town I live in has prevented several "adult" book stores from setting up shop here. The usual tactic is to claim that what they want to build isn't allowed by the zoning. Those sort of establishments have to set up shop on the other side of the river.. next town over.
Re:Misplaced outrage (Score:4, Insightful)
Too far (Score:2, Interesting)
They may be going too far in their deletions, but whether you like it or not, it IS their business and choice. Censorship has to do with government actions, not the decisions of private businesses.
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Most of the text discussing censorship specifically made mention of government, organizational and self-censorship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship [wikipedia.org] pretty much sums it all up.
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The First Amendment (in the US) only covers censorship by the US government (and then only when the government decides that it should not be allowed to censor that content), but anyone else blocking content from being sold or read is also censoring that content, whether it's because of the government or not.
Re:Too far (Score:4, Informative)
You're confusing the term "censorship" with the First Amendment.
Anyone can be a censor. The First Amendment only limits the government's ability to censor.
50 Shades? (Score:2, Insightful)
So are they going to refund the billion dollars they sold of 50 Shades of Gray? Or is the difference not in content but in sales?
lol captcha is "modest"
Reading the Guardian earlier... (Score:5, Insightful)
I myself like Japanese anime and culture, and have read a few doujinshi which feature young anime characters in sexual situations, but...
>The National Crime Agency warned on Sunday that books appearing to legitimise child abuse "might feed the fantasies of paedophiles and in some cases encourage child sexual abusers to commit contact offences".
I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit.
Maybe we should ban first person shooters too because it might legitimize murder and encourage people to commit actual offences...
Anyone who can't tell the difference between an actual, human person and fictional character(s) are no different than the ones who abuse children, or murder, or rape women...
And people ask me why I do not like eBook (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, not that i am into erotica, but I dislike being told what I am being allowed to read by private company.
You're not. A private company is deciding which products it wishes to sell and which it does not.
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Well, not that i am into erotica, but I dislike being told what I am being allowed to read by private company.
You're not. A private company is deciding which products it wishes to sell and which it does not.
The problem with eBooks, though, is that in most implementations they can reach in and retroactively remove the books you've purchased. So even if they chose to sell a book and you chose to buy it, they can choose to un-sell the book to you if they decide the content is a problem for them.
Re:And people ask me why I do not like eBook (Score:4, Insightful)
And I'd guess that private company doesn't like you telling them what they are allowed to (or must) sell.
Honestly, if you're worried that there isn't enough erotica available then you're not that interested in erotica. Try google. The puzzle for me is that anyone would pay for it.
Today "Porn" (Score:5, Interesting)
Tomorrow dissident materials, then anything that anyone doesn't like. And don't forget they know who bought these e-books, that might be grounds for a search warrant.
Now, it is their right as a business not to carry anything they don't personally approve of, but it is a bad path we are heading down.
Hey! The 'free market' works (Score:4, Insightful)
No rape or incest? (Score:4, Funny)
So we can't buy bibles on line anymore?
Re:No rape or incest? (Score:5, Informative)
Before anyone mods parent as trollbait, here are indisputable examples of Incest in the Bible:
1) And Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth, at the east side of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and brought forth Henoch: and he built a city, and called the name thereof by the name of his son Henoch. - Genesis 4:16-17
2) Howbeit, otherwise also she is truly my sister, the daughter of my father, and not the daughter of my mother, and I took her to wife. And after God brought me out of my father’s house, I said to her: Thou shalt do me this kindness: In every place, to which we shall come, thou shalt say that I am thy brother. - Genesis 20:12-13
3) And Thare lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nachor, and Aran. And these are the generations of Thare: Thare begot Abram, Nachor, and Aran. And Aran begot Lot. And Aran died before Thare his father, in the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees. And Abram and Nachor married wives: the name of Abram’s wife was Sarai: and the name of Nachor’s wife, Melcha, the daughter of Aran, father of Melcha, and father of Jescha. - Genesis 11:26-29
4) And the elder said to the younger Our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth. Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in and lay with her father: but he perceived not neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up. And the next day the elder said to the younger: Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father. They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up. So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father. - Genesis 19:31-36
5) The sons of Merari: Moholi and Musi. These are the kindreds of Levi by their families. 20 And Amram took to wife Jochabed his aunt by the father’s side: and she bore him Aaron and Moses. And the years of Amram’s life were a hundred and thirty-seven. - Exodus 6:19-20
And finally the best one combines incest and rape:
6) And Thamar came to the house of Amnon her brother: but he was laid down: and she took meal and tempered it: and dissolving it in his sight she made little messes. And taking what she had boiled, she poured it out, and set it before him, but he would not eat: and Amnon said: Put out all persons from me. And when they had put all persons out, Amnon said to Thamar: Bring the mess into the chamber, that I may eat at thy hand. And when she had presented him the meat, he took hold of her, and said: Come lie with me, my sister. She answered him: Do not so, my brother, do not force me: for no such thing must be done in Israel. Do not thou this folly. But he would not hearken to her prayers, but being stronger overpowered her and lay with her. [II Kings 13:12-14]
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There are indisputable examples on every news station as well.
Now the only thing your listing needs for you to reach baseline intellectual honesty, is to filter the list by which state they are advocating it. By my count, that criterion puts us at zero.
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If only Ray Bradbury were still alive.... (Score:3)
So at what temperature does an e-book burn?
Montag, you're a fireman!
So, lemme get this straight, they are going to ban all erotica, but "50 Shades of Grey" is still a top seller, right?
Only books from relatively unknown authors, eh? Yeah, that's not showing any favoritism... Why not shut down the entire Amazon self-publishing arm?
There's this book I'd like to ban... It's called the Bible, and more people have been murdered via this book than all the guns, videogames, territorial wars, and other sources combined. It is truly evil and needs to be abolished.
Why do I need to be protected from pornography? (Score:3)
Like these are the only places to buy ebooks (Score:3, Informative)
www.ellorascave.com [ellorascave.com]
www.ebook-eros.com [ebook-eros.com]
www.sirenpublishing.com [sirenpublishing.com]
and of course, literotica.com [literotica.com] is still free.
If Amazon, B&N and friends don't want that business, I'm sure these folks and others will be happy to have the extra customers. The nice thing about shopping on the internet is that all the stores are equally close.
Hey, this is a good thing! (Score:3)
It's common, Google does this too (Score:4, Informative)
Barnes & Noble = Hypocrites! (Score:4, Informative)
I remember Barnes & Noble making a big thing about how it supported banned books like Huckleberry Finn and The Lorax. They had signs and buttons reading "I read banned books!" all over the store.
I guess now its "I only read the books I'm allowed to read!"
Kobo (Score:4)
Sign the anti-censorship petition at change.org (Score:3)
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It's not really an overreaction to make it much harder to find self-published work? u wot m8?
Fuck the Daily Hate - it's caused more problems for society than some sad old man's written fantasy about being a sugar daddy to a naive teen.
"Well, I let my child walk into the newsagents and look freely at the newspapers, and he saw the tits of a 16 year old girl. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE."
Not that I have any problem with WH Smith improving their algorithms to remove unexpected results - hundreds of humans are employed
Re:Facts please. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rape, incest, bestiality are some of the things being targeted. That isn't exactly just bare breasts. Although you raise an issue noted in this bit from the BBC story [bbc.co.uk]:
"We outlaw snuff films, child porn and, increasingly, revenge porn, because actual people are harmed during their production," wrote PJ Vogt on OnTheMedia.org.
Re:Facts please. (Score:5, Insightful)
> Rape, incest ...
So... no more bibles then.
Re:Facts please. (Score:5, Funny)
At one point I wanted to self-republish the Old Testament, but with a cover which made it look like a filthy, violent hardcore porn novel, spattered with choice quotes about rape, incest, torture, etc.
I quite like the idea of being thrown in jail for sex offences for merely distributing a copy of the well-known book which can now be judged by its cover.
Re:Facts please. (Score:5, Informative)
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Ah yes they do: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ea_1381098599 [liveleak.com]
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That was what happened in this case, the Syrian army executed this priest and wanted it filmed to broadcast to other resistance sympathizers.
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So let's start a Facebook/Twitter rant about their censorship and let them decide which shitstorm to deal with.
Re:Well it is about time (Score:5, Insightful)
When having to choose between siding with a pedophile and siding with a politician, the choice is easy: Side with the pedo.
Simple self interest. The chance that the pedo might do something that harms me is zero. I'm too old for that. No such luck with the politician, though.
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"e-books" are a viable option, its ones with DRM attached that are not.
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After Amazon pulled the first revokation, I decided that ebooks were no longer a viable option.
Actually, ebooks are just as viable an option as paper books.
paper books are recalled too if somebody convinces the authorities or the publisher that something is wrong or illegal about the book.
The problem with ebooks are DRM and other schemes that allow ebook shops to pull ebooks from users reading devices.
But if you buy ebooks DRM-free and download them immediately to a medium that only you have control over nobody can remove or change content.
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There's nothing wrong with some teautiful bitties, but if you ask for a book of bedtime stories to read your kid, and the store clerk points you to "Daddy Incest Volume #3," then there's a problem. That's what's going on here. And it is a problem.
Yes, but as described, it's an indexing and access control problem. Yes, the merchant is free to solve that problem however he/she wishes, but let's not color the issue any more than it has been already.
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What you do what those books were written in a culture different than ours, describing things that were normal, accepted or according with the moral values of that time or place compared with the ones of our times? what about the future with our own values? Oh, wait there is no place in the future for our current books [theatlantic.com].
Maybe most of what was banned deserved it, had no literary or any other value at all. But was all? And setting this precedent is opening the door for bad abuses of it, specially when people
Re:RTFA - Not an Infowar (Score:5, Informative)
Example #4: Also read the well written BBC article as well.
Sure, I got sucked into the thought that this was about censorship. Then I did the opposite of /., I read the articles and discovered that instead of this being Bad Amazon, Bad B&N, it was more along the lines of Bad Authors who snuck their works in under the self-publishing loop hole.
Had a smut author walked in the front door of Amazon or B&N and said "hey, will you sell my ... works ... centered around incest, rape, and pedophilia" they would be handed a copy of those store's book offering policy and shown the door. Instead, the authors use the self-publishing (and not well policed) approach to get into Amazon's store.
In the end I did not see this a censorship. Amazon and B&N are not pulling an ebook from a reader, they are removing content that violates their business model. That is their right. As others stated, authors can find other means to promote and sell their work other then through Amazon. I am sure one can still go out there and find such literary works like "I raped my drunk little girl", download them to their Kindle/Nook and ... "enjoy them?" That is not censorship. Now if a Government makes broad sweep removals requirement for all businesses...then we can debate censorship.
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Example #1: Proliferation of beastiality content in the UK, where beastiality is illegal.
Star Trek is illegal in the UK, then? After all, there's all kinds of interspecies sex on a starship. Hell, Spock's human mom obviously had sex with a Vulcan.
Example #2: Incest, pedo-bear, and rape stories mixed in with children's books.
I guess if I visit the UK I'd better leave my bible home then.
Example #3: RTFA
I read part of the first one. It was rubbish.