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Paypal Forces E-Book Publisher To Censor Erotic Content
hey! writes "On February 18 of this year, global giant payment processor PayPal sent eBook publisher Smashwords an ultimatum: if Smashwords didn't remove all eBooks with certain erotic content from its catalog in the next several days, PayPal would immediately stop handling payments. Smashword's TOS already precluded child pornography, but now PayPal wants them to also censor depictions of consenting, non-related adults acting out incest fantasies. Likewise, fantasy novels in which human characters transform into non-humans are affected if those characters have sex. ZDNet has a summary of the impact of these changes, which would among other things ban Vladmir Nabokov's Lolita. As outrage mounts, finger pointing is in full swing. Smashwords blames PayPal, and PayPal blames the banks it deals with. The crux seems to be that erotica buyers have a higher rate of 'chargebacks' — customers who buy stuff then demand their money back. Fair enough, but is a customer really more likely to return a book because it depicts one kind of fantasy between consenting adults vs. another? Perhaps the problem is just the quality of writing."
Note: as you can probably tell from the summary, the linked articles (while factual in nature) discuss subjects that may not be suitable for workplace reading.
It's not enough that you want unfettered access to remove funds at whim from my bank account. Now you want to decide what I read too? Yet another reason to NOT use Paypal ever...
PayPal wants them to also censor depictions of consenting, non-related adults acting out incest fantasies.
Someone better tell George Martin not to use Paypal.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
And Shakespeare.
A Midsummer's Night's Dream anyone?
Check your premises.
Have gnu, will travel.
The Song of Ice and Fire series is fine, because it's not "non-related adults acting out incest fantasies" ... it's actual incest!
Not only that, but I heard that a 100-year-old man has sex with a teenage girl in those books.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There are many things you are not allowed to accept money for on PayPal. Most of them are illegal, but some, like guns and erotica, are not. But I do remember in PayPal's TOS that they did exclude sellers from taking payments for adult material.
So yeah, don't take PayPal and then complain because YOU didn't follow the rules.
However I will grant that the definition of what is, and isn't 'erotica', could be subject to wild swings of interpretation. However any merchant with enough volume has their own merchant account and doesn't need PayPal anyhow, so shouldn't need to worry about PP's interpretation.
That would imply that someone actually read an e-mail to paypal, and not just the automated system. I don't believe it.
No. The problem is that a company doing payment processing oversteps its authority by making conditions on what those payments may be made for. The only legitimate condition they can put is that the money transaction is not for some illegal purpose. Anything else is simple none of their matter. What's next? Streets which come with restrictions on what books people in the passenger seats may read when driving on it? Garbage collection with the condition that your garbage doesn't contain condoms? Television channels which restrict the type of food you may eat while watching?
If they think those books are illegal, they should call the police. If not, they should shut up and process the payments, because that's what they get paid for.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Vampires aren't human either. So either way it would qualify.
Eh... I don't seen Human-Vampire sex freaking people out as much as Human-Wolf sex...
I mean, technically you're totally right, but I think that the intent of the wording was to remove a loophole they were using to avoid "bestiality", by making the animal secretly a human. And few people would consider Human-Vampire sex bestiality...
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Or wire transfer, or money orders, or checks, or credit cards, or cash in an envelope...
I've never really understood what role PayPal plays. It's like a bank, but apparently not covered with any kind of regulations nor in fact any laws at all, with a reputation for stopping payments and confiscating money on your account on a whim. I can't think of a scenario where it wouldn't be the worst possible option for everyone involved. So why do people use it?
But yeah, Bitcoin would be ideal, especially since proof of payment stays available as long as the network lasts. I don't think it can stabilize and become widely-accepted, however, especially since any sign it is becoming so would threaten every bank in existence.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
What, you point to that one and not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_(film)?
Learn to love Alaska
What about gods that merely look human having sex with humans? There goes half of the ancient mythologies.
On the plus side, it would at least take care of the entire Twilight franchise in one fell swoop. Vampires and werewolves are clearly not human. At best, it'd fall into necrophilia and bestiality.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Having not read the books myself or seen the movies, I could be mistaken here, but I heard there's not actually much if any sex in it. I thought the vampirism was some type of overly dramatic metaphor for sex. Sex being scary to the target audience. Which, considering it's supposed to be for teenage girls is less silly than that may sound at first.
Anyway, your proposal is insufficient to eliminate the threat, we need to nuke it from orbit to be sure.