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Amazon Removes Yaoi Manga Titles From Kindle Store
Repossessed writes "Amazon is now cracking down on Yaoi manga, with several titles that have been available on the Kindle since 2009 being delisted and others now being rejected, according to Digital Manga Publisher. DMP has also stated that Amazon has not given any rationale for the rejections and removals, and Amazon has not been answering emails or phone calls from journalists asking about the subject."
Can't say I'll miss porn written for schoolgirls, but in general Amazon has been adopting such a manipulative corporate mindset that I have to hold my nose to use them anymore. Where do people go when they give up Amazon?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Do you really think everyone knows what Yaoi manga is?
This was always the paradox of ebooks. By every measure, ebooks should have the first thing that easily came to the computer. Files sizes were small and text was one of the first things reasonably conquered by computers. In the early days, sound cards were necessary to play music, video files were just goddamned intensive.... and yet as a medium, books came last after everything else.
Now, we're stuck with Amazon/Apple being the central distributors, they're start going to decide more and more on content for whatever reason. At least music players, you can load it up as an mp3 file and there are several music stores online to choose from. Even Apple managed to talk RIAA out of DRM. But publishers are going to be signing their own death warrant, building up their masters for the immediate (and false) security of DRM.
I love things in a digital format. But I really, really hate how the distribution model is playing out. This is the eBay model. One central place, it's convenient in some ways, but you play by their rules or you don't play at all, and if they decide to fuck you, they really fuck you.
We need to get away from the eBay model from these greedy ass companies, or it's going to be a damned bleak and bland future. We need to move over to the google shopping model, decentralized and seperate stores/vendor offering their wares connected by an neutraol aggregator (which lets people review service) and a whitelist for the cautious type.
I'm getting really sick of the direction these gadgets are heading.
It's this weird idea that a book about something is the same as that thing. To get an idea of how stupid that is think about all the books, movies, TV shows etc about murder.
It doesn't matter what you think of yaoi, or manga, or erotica in general. Surely you can see where this is going. Stop supporting the thought police and put your money into companies that don't censor books. Amazon won't stop until they lose enough money. There's no telling when they'll start ruining classics.
If they were just in the "money" business, this content would just be another set of SKUs in their inventory. The problem, if what is being alleged is true, is that they are in the "ideology" business.
After Amazon remotely deleted 1984 (ironic to say the least), this is no surprise. It would be akin to a book seller breaking into one's home to take back a book one had already bought; "licensed" is the loophole Amazon and other on-line book sellers uses to get around the 1st sale doctrine to restrict, or even often forbid, resale, sharing, etc.
More to the point, the 1984 incident illustrated well that Kindles, much like many mobile devices, are designed with remote deletion in mind - there was an article on here the other day about Google remotely deleting apps.
While Amazon supposedly agreed they will refrain from utilizing remote deletion in the future, the feature still exists. On a related note, even if the device out of the box doesn't support remote deletion, any device that accepts software updates with little (ie. Bluray players; inserting a disc) to no user intervention (mobile phones) can easily be programmed to remotely restrict / delete / self-destruct.
Among the best defenses against remote deletion / restrictions are widely used, non-DRM formats that can be easily copied and widely distributed, as well as, easily compared / verified to ensure the contents haven't changed...
To digress a tad, it's only a matter of time, assuming it's not already happened, before some company, such as Amazon, doesn't remotely delete a book, but rather silently modifies some of the content *after* purchase without telling the customer.
Ron
If you don't sell something because it doesn't generate you money, it is called business sense.
If you don't sell something because you don't like it, that's ideology. (Especially if it would generate you money.)
A few posters have said no to rating systems. Why no ratings?
While not perfect, does the MPAA rating scheme not give you at a glance a general idea as to how kid (or adult) friendly a movie is? Probably shouldn't be taking the kindergarten kids to see that R movie. Similar with the game rating system. Neither system is perfect. Stuff gets mis-rated all the time, but in a general sense they and the music system are all great for giving parents a good general idea as to what they will allow their children to see, play, listen too, or read if we extend to this new area of ratings.
As a parent I want to be able to tell at a glance, regardless of the name, whether or not I want my young kids to see it. A movie name, and often even the trailers can give very poor cues as to the maturity of the film.
Similarly I don't want to go see what I think is a good action adventure/spy film and find out after I've put down my money that it's a kids film, based around CGI newts. I'll take my young kids to G and maybe PG movies and my dates to PG-13 or R movies. Such a rating system would be great for books as well. Not all parents are avid readers. Some would rather chew their own foot off before reading a book. Even if it is to see if the content is allowable within their moral guidelines for their kids. A rating system would allow them to make fairly safe authorizations based on rating levels.
Not all subjects are fine at all ages. Reading some topics, or viewing some materials at too young an age really can harm a child psychologically, introduce them to concepts their mind isn't mature enough to handle yet and the results can be quite harmful.
A rating system is not censorship. The books are still published, and still available. A rating system allows those with moral or similar objections to some materials to avoid those materials, while still allowing those with no objections to the materials to enjoy them. Censorship is saying "I don't like that book, ban it so nobody can read it." This is saying "I don't like that book, and don't want that smut in my house. But thank you for giving me a way to determine it's content without having to subject my mind to it. But anyone else who wants to read it can." Yes this does allow for close minded people to avoid certain topics or materials, but it does not deny any other adults access to those same materials. And as for the children of the close minded adults, when they grow up they can choose to access the materials.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
If a fictional book is created, sold and read, illustrated or not, about a bank heist, no one is stealing; nothing has been stolen; it is fiction. A work of imagination. For entertainment purposes.
The same applies to interactions such as those found in Lolita, Yaoi titles, the Story of O, Exit to Eden, Belinda, and so on for quite a long list written over an impressive span of time (erotica is hardly unique to the 20th and 21st centuries.)
That said, there is no question that as a venue for selling products, the seller has the right to choose what products they will sell; all that remains is for the customers to decide if those choices make them more or less likely to shop there.
Finally, an interesting reality of our society is summed up by the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." If you wish to apply legitimate pressure encouraging Amazon to carry all titles without making content-based cullings, simply contact them, tell them so, and indicate that your future purchasing plans will vary depending on Amazon's behavior here. And then follow through.
I would suggest that this is worth doing; today, it's something you probably don't care if you ever see. Tomorrow, it may be something you do care about. Ideally, a venue for buying e-books would, as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has claimed is their goal, carry every book, no matter what content.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Not all subjects are fine at all ages. Reading some topics, or viewing some materials at too young an age really can harm a child psychologically, introduce them to concepts their mind isn't mature enough to handle yet and the results can be quite harmful.
Which subjects? Please cite studies.
Europe and many other countries around the world seem perfectly fine despite being very open about nudity. In fact, they'd probably claim the US is a degenerate bunch of Neanderthals for how much violence we allow our children to see.
So which standard are you using? Is nudity okay for your children as many Europeans would claim or is violence okay as many Americans would claim? Which one is based on science and which one is based on arbitrary cultural views? Well?
In reality, a rating system compresses a very complex multi-dimensional set of movie descriptors into a single axis. No matter how much you may delude yourself into thinking there is science behind how it's done, there isn't. It's an arbitrary choice based on culture. Not your culture, btw, but that of whomever makes the decision on the rating.