The policy on referencing Ebooks.

[jezzaz]

So yeah.

I know a number of high profile writers who have left Lit-Erotica over this policy, since once you reach a certain level of competency, you start to want to get paid for the effort.

With competency also comes time sink and effort - much planning of the manuscript, the writing, endless revisions and submissions to editors, and so on. Quality isn't free - it comes at the cost of time and effort.

The problem here is that Lit - or specifically Manu and Laurel - operate a very unclear, indistinct and frankly, monopolistic policy about writers being able to springboard from Lit into a paid career.

Sure, you can do it. You can write whatever ebooks you want, but you can't take your audience from here with you. There's no way to let people know there are other content avenues they can use, to support their favorite writers.

I've recently been hit by this - I wrote an essay on the background to all the stuff I've written, and it was sent back because, deep in the middle, I made reference to Ebook versions of some of the stuff I've written here, which have extra stories in them, to make them have some exclusivity. No links to anything, no even mention of where those ebooks are, what they are called, or pics of the covers. Just... mentions. But that was enough to trigger the Sent Back response. Now, I do also take that as a compliment, because it meant Laurel did actually read the whole thing, and I don't think she does for all submissions (lets be clear, there are tens, if not hundreds, of submissions a day; there's no way she can read all of them.) But still, it's an incredibly restrictive and harmful policy.

And this is the second time. I did in the header to the last story I published, and that was sent back too.

Now, I get why this policy is in place - some of the posters here have MASSIVE signatures with images of their book covers in them, in an effort to get noticed. If Lit allowed this inside of stories, we'd get stories that were basically just giant ad's for books external to this site.


But.

The policy as implemented right now is very vague, - it all comes down to judgement by Laurel, and with the best will in the world, it's fairly knee-jerky. And most of all, it's completely monopolistic.

The thing is, they don't want 'ads', which I get. But who gets to decide if it's an ad or not? One person. I make mention of ebooks, and that's considered an Ad. But someone like Daniel Q Steele can make mention of it in the header of one his stories, and that's allowed, so there's inconsistencies in application, which makes the entire policy pretty bad out the gate. It's in an essay for fucks sake. If I can't talk about Ebooks there, why the hell not??

What makes a mention bad? Can I mention other people's Ebooks? Can I talk about Shakespeare, or Arthur Conan Doyle's ebook versions? Is that an Ad? Where is the line? Is it only my books I can't talk about? So, can someone else talk about my ebooks in a story or essay, and I talk about them? Is that all right? I get a link is bad - even I have a limit - but, mentioning it? Seriously?

I won't go into first amendment issues, because they don't actually apply here; this is a privately owned site, and they can censor whatever the hell they like, and some of their censorship is in accordance with the law. No mentioning underage sex and the like, and rightly so.

Then there's the reasoning for this in the first place. The idea is to not allow stories to mention external books, IE the competition for eyeballs. The root point is that Laurel and Manu do actually earn their living off this site, and they didn't create it so a bunch of authors could take home all the money, via Epublishing and they provide them (and pay for) a platform to do that with. Basically put, Mama and Papa gots to get paid.

And there's nothing wrong with making sure that they get a financial stream. That's what all the ads for video stuff and the store is for. They get millions of readers, they paid for and built the infrastructure it all sits on, and maintain and upgrade it; they absolutely should get a piece of that action.

But, 2.0.

Their protection of their revenue stream comes at the cost of anyone else having one, and actively work against the interests of the best authors this site produces. How, in any world, is that fair? What's worse, is they are doing that to people who are giving them their content, that their entire revenue stream is based on, for free.

The restriction on authors being able to even mention revenue streams for themselves is actually very monopolistic. Lit Erotica has 100x the viewership of other online story portals. The only one that comes close, in the English speaking world, is StoriesOnline.com, and they are way way smaller in terms of eyeballs on the site.

Lit, because it's free, and because it was first, is most assuredly a monopoly in this situation and the refusal of allowing authors to just even mention revenue generating avenues for themselves is the very definition of monopoly abuse of power. It's a policy designed to lock in revenue and force authors to use this site and this site alone, to make the owners money and deny it to those who actually provide the content for them to do so.

This is very similar to what happened in 1942, with the Paramount decision, and what is going on now with Epic vs Apple, regarding the apps store.

The owners of the monopoly are abusing their position as the ones with absolute power to ensure that they remain at the top of the heap and ensuring no competition.

Now, I don't for a second really think that Manu and Laurel and sitting in a lair carved out of a Volcano, stroking hairless cats and rubbing their hands with glee, but... the practical upshot of this absolute hard edged policy is a monopolistic result.

I had a long chat with an entertainment lawyer in LA about this, and he was astonished at this. He basically said if anyone else in entertainment did this, they'd be sued out of existence by the content creators union. Lit gets away with it because those providing content, for the most part, legally illiterate and also it's a hobby, not a living for them - they don't have a union protecting their interests. It's just not worth making a fuss about for 98% of the submitters here. It's that other 2% it really fucks in the ass.

I'm sitting here debating whether to sue or not. It's expensive to do it, but it's extremely unfair towards the people who create the content that make Manu and Laurel money. Allowing just mentions would not impact that revenue stream. The reality is that the policy, as it stands right now, is a) undocumented, b) unenforceable (see the whole "who's ebooks CAN I mention?" part) and c) monopolistic.

If I did, the aim I'd like to see is

1) the relaxing of this 'instant send back if you even mention works outside Lit'
2) a refining of the policy. E.g. "No links and no images of book covers"

That would alleviate the monopolistic tendencies, and give authors here an place to try and make an actual living at this, and wouldn't impact Lit's revenue stream at all.

Hell, I'd be fine if Lit offered a publishing arm, like Smashwords, to sell some content for authors on all the Ebook portals. I'd definitely sign up for that, and wouldn't be upset if they took like 5% of the profit themselves (remember, everywhere else is already taking 30%, so now you, as an author would only get 65%) because the eyeballs on that sale would be worth it.

Thoughts?

 

[KeithD]

I'm too busy to read all of that at the moment, but since I've just now been into related referencing here on Lit., I'll throw in a couple of comments.

This is one place where you can freely post information on your e-books as long as you are a Literotica author: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=569279

I understand you can put links to your e-books in your posting signature too, although I don't do that.

I've just done some referencing on the board (the "Sam Winterberry Stories" post), so I should note how this was (so far) accepted. I have a series of stories linked by a single character and his spy operation, Sam Winterberry and the CIA Candy Store unit. A Literotica reader asked me to provide a list of those stories. What I have done in the "Sam Winterberry Stories" post is list them (and include some book covers) but I have only provided linking to stories here on Literotica. The request for a list came on my recently posted "Fomenting a Coup." In referencing the story list there in the comments section, I made it clear that all of the stories linked are ones posted at Literotica and all the links lead there. My book cover images (including my changing avatar, which are my book covers) have no links to anywhere outside of Literotica.

So, with the exception of the one forum area the Web site provides to link to marketplace e-books, I give no linking in stories or posts to anything that isn't available for a free read right here on Literotica.

I don't think that links inside stories posted at Literotica, even to other Literotica stories, is permitted. And I don't try to do that. I do like to drop titles of my own marketplace books in stories, but I don't identify them as mine or provide any linking to where they can be bought--and, thus far, none have caused a "sent back" action (and, maybe the kicker, they all will be available on Literotica at some point for a free read).

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't publish elsewhere so I have no dog in this hunt, but I don't really see what the problem is. One can question the policy, but it doesn't strike me as unfair and definitely not monopolistic.

Literotica is a big player in its field, but it's not in any way a monopoly. There are plenty of other places to go to read erotic stories. The sign of a monopoly would be if Literotica had the power to charge above-competitive prices. But Literotica in fact charges no prices. There are zero barriers to entry to starting your own erotic story site. Literally anybody can do it, and hundreds, maybe thousands, do.

There are other ways, besides putting links inside one's stories, that one can use Literotica as a platform to advertise stories one publishes elsewhere. Plenty of authors do this. There are also innumerable ways for one to advertise one's stories outside Literotica.

It doesn't strike me as in any way a monopolistic or unfair business practice.

 

[jezzaz]

I'm too busy to read all of that at the moment, but since I've just now been into related referencing here on Lit., I'll throw in a couple of comments.

This is one place where you can freely post information on your e-books as long as you are a Literotica author: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=569279

I understand you can put links to your e-books in your posting signature too, although I don't do that.

I've just done some referencing on the board (the "Sam Winterberry Stories" post), so I should note how this was (so far) accepted. I have a series of stories linked by a single character and his spy operation, Sam Winterberry and the CIA Candy Store unit. A Literotica reader asked me to provide a list of those stories. What I have done in the "Sam Winterberry Stories" post is list them (and include some book covers) but I have only provided linking to stories here on Literotica. The request for a list came on my recently posted "Fomenting a Coup." In referencing the story list there in the comments section, I made it clear that all of the stories linked are ones posted at Literotica and all the links lead there. My book cover images (including my changing avatar, which are my book covers) have no links to anywhere outside of Literotica.

So, with the exception of the one forum area the Web site provides to link to marketplace e-books, I give no linking in stories or posts to anything that isn't available for a free read right here on Literotica.

I don't think that links inside stories posted at Literotica, even to other Literotica stories, is permitted. And I don't try to do that. I do like to drop titles of my own marketplace books in stories, but I don't identify them as mine or provide any linking to where they can be bought--and, thus far, none have caused a "sent back" action (and, maybe the kicker, they all will be available on Literotica at some point for a free read).

Riiiggghhtt..

But all of that a) means that readers have to know this forum exception exists, and b) also that you'll be posting in there.

You can't mention it yourself in your story headers, where 99.9% of readership of lit lands. Hell, they even censor comments now, so you can't mention it your ebooks there, either.

What percentage of readers do you think visits this forum, or knows about the rule exception in that one thread?

 

[KeithD]

As I noted, I don't have time to read your voluminous post at the moment or to discuss the issue. I just established what I do, because I have just done action related to what you seem to be discussing. The bottom line is that, with the exception of what the Web site is providing in outside advertising support (the one forum for Lit. authors to advertise their marketplace works--which is fully explained in that forum) and possibly the signature line, which I don't fully know about because I don't do it, and allowing you to use your book covers as your avatar (that I know can be done only because I've done it for years), all linking is only to posted Literotica stories. Everything other than the exceptions given is in house. That the rules are not explicitly stated enough for you isn't going to be my problem. Just about everything I write, including what I sell, eventually shows up on Literotica for free read, I fully and openly acknowledge that, and the site owners seem to know that.

You might not have noticed, but I don't do statistical voodoo speculation on the Literotica story file, readers, or authors.

 

[jezzaz]

don't publish elsewhere so I have no dog in this hunt

and then

but it doesn't strike me as unfair and definitely not monopolistic.

Ok then.

But let's actually address some of this.

but it's not in any way a monopoly.

That, unfortunately, is not the way a monopoly is judged.

Put it this way. Is there another place where you can go post your story, and be guaranteed the eyes on it, that you can get with Lit? No? Okay then. That's what a monopoly is. It means it's the one place that is head and shoulders above every one else.

The concept that "well, there are other places to publish" doesn't stop one place from being a monopoly, if it is clearly above everyone else. Free market capitialism means that there needs to be a level playing field for all - that one group cannot use that top-of-the-heap position to actively push other down, with the exception of providing a better product or experience. The moment you do that, it's anti-competition, and clearly, Lit is now in that bracket, even if inadvertently.

The restriction of authors being able to even mention other revenue streams means that yes, Lit IS using that position to stop anyone else from being able to realise $ from their activities, for fear that Lit will lose theirs, which is nonsense. Me advertising my Ebook's when publishing my content on here for free in no way stops Lit from serving up Ad's for video chats and selling stuff on their toys store. Yet they are acting as though it does.

 

[jezzaz]

I don't really care about your 'problems'; I didn't even bother to read your whole story--stopped half-way.

You could have known what you signed up for, when submitting stories for Lit. You could have known they don't allow you to advertise anything else than Lit; do you think they are stupid? And if you try to put hidden advertisements in your stories, I wouldn't mind if they'd block your profile. No spam.

Again, "could have known" doesn't actually make it right or okay.

McDonalds could have policy of "well, there might be strychnine in our burgers", and advertise that fact on entry to the restaurant, but that doesn't make it OK, does it?

 

[jezzaz]

I didn't even bother to read your whole story--stopped half-way.

Ok. So, you are responding to an issue where you haven't even bothered to read what the issues is, you are just declaring you don't care.

Ok, well, that's certainly your right. I don't see how that helps anyone though? I mean, why bother at all?

 

[jezzaz]

Something I'd like to add, since it's clear that there are those who just like to be contrary because... well, they like to be contrary,... is this.

The idea that authors can even mention an ebook in a submission to Lit does not in any way impact any other rights that anyone else who submits currently enjoys

I mean, it makes exactly zero difference to the majority of people who submit, who have no intention of writing their stuff for an ebook.

But it does make a significant difference to those who do. And at zero cost to Lit itself, since their revenue streams aren't based selling content anyway. They make $ through ads and selling toys and advertising video chat. If authors make $ from selling their stuff, it doesn't stop them from putting their content on here for free and thereby enhancing the Lit financial model.

So, I'm frankly puzzled by the instant knee jerk reaction of those who want to defend the status quo, since it makes exactly zero difference to them in the first place?

 

[Bramblethorn]

That, unfortunately, is not the way a monopoly is judged.

Put it this way. Is there another place where you can go post your story, and be guaranteed the eyes on it, that you can get with Lit? No? Okay then. That's what a monopoly is. It means it's the one place that is head and shoulders above every one else.

Can you point to any legal precedent that supports this definition of "monopoly"?

The concept that "well, there are other places to publish" doesn't stop one place from being a monopoly, if it is clearly above everyone else.

By this definition, almost every market is a "monopoly", since most industries have some kind of market leader.

Free market capitialism means that there needs to be a level playing field for all - that one group cannot use that top-of-the-heap position to actively push other down, with the exception of providing a better product or experience. The moment you do that, it's anti-competition, and clearly, Lit is now in that bracket, even if inadvertently.

But this restriction is "providing a better product or experience".

Opening up to ebook ads in stories would encourage spam and story theft. We already have thieves ripping off Literotica stories to sell on Amazon (another point of evidence that Lit is not a monopoly...) If they can post stories here that plug their paid stories, what do you think is going to happen?

So yeah.

I know a number of high profile writers who have left Lit-Erotica over this policy, since once you reach a certain level of competency, you start to want to get paid for the effort.

Huh. Where did they leave for?

What makes a mention bad? Can I mention other people's Ebooks? Can I talk about Shakespeare, or Arthur Conan Doyle's ebook versions? Is that an Ad? Where is the line? Is it only my books I can't talk about? So, can someone else talk about my ebooks in a story or essay, and I talk about them? Is that all right? I get a link is bad - even I have a limit - but, mentioning it? Seriously?

Literotica has a policy against using this site for "teasers" - some authors have posted partial stories here and then told readers "if you want to see how it ends, go buy the last chapter", that kind of thing. From what you'd described, it's not hard to believe that Laurel took your essay as an ad.

Their protection of their revenue stream comes at the cost of anyone else having one, and actively work against the interests of the best authors this site produces. How, in any world, is that fair? What's worse, is they are doing that to people who are giving them their content, that their entire revenue stream is based on, for free.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sure, you can do it. You can write whatever ebooks you want, but you can't take your audience from here with you. There's no way to let people know there are other content avenues they can use, to support their favorite writers.

I don't see the problem. In your Author's profile you can link to a on off-site book store. I do it, other writers do it, so every single reader of your work here can see that you sell books somewhere else. The site allows me to do that.

I've got links in my signature block, so if you read this reply, you can see that I sell books. The site offers me that service, and I don't pay a cent for it. It's a free service.

Does every single reader go off and buy a copy to give you some reward, some recognition of the free content you're giving them here? No, they don't. An occasional one might, but they are exceptionally rare.

Other than those writers who generate constant content and keep putting it out, I doubt there's many who make a buck writing smut. But if they do make a buck on the back of their profile here, I reckon they should be thanking Lit, not threatening to sue. That's an astonishing perspective, frankly.

Edit: I just read Bramblethorn's post, and the last comment. Lol.

 

[jezzaz]

Can you point to any legal precedent that supports this definition of "monopoly"?

Any of them. All of them. It doesn't take much to go look it up?

By this definition, almost every market is a "monopoly", since most industries have some kind of market leader.

Yes, they are. But, in legal sense, it doesn't matter, because unless it's proven that you are using anti-competitive measures to remain on top, then that's just good old capitalism at work.

The definition isn't necessarily germane to the discussion, unless that situation is true, and it is here.

But this restriction is "providing a better product or experience".

Yeah? You can prove that, can you? I can prove categorically that it's not providing me with a better experience, since I am restricted from being able to offer my audience other avenues of reading my work. That's a very specific -and very provable - data point. Your statement is a belief, not a fact. It's not one I even agree with; you can put specific terminology into a properly defined policy to restrict the things you are talking about.

Also -

We already have thieves ripping off Literotica stories to sell on Amazon (another point of evidence that Lit is not a monopoly...) If they can post stories here that plug their paid stories, what do you think is going to happen?

I am quite confused by this. Are you suggesting that me, being able to point at specific stuff I have released as Ebook content is somehow going to make it easier for my work to be pirated? How does that work? Given I can point directly at the real content, the one I made, I would have thought that would decrease the ability for it to be stolen, not increase it. If someone else tries to do the same thing, I can then use the fact that I am pointing at the real content as a point of contention.

Far from being a bad idea, this is a good idea. Really don't understand that logic at all.

Huh. Where did they leave for?

They left to only create content for Ebooks, and not publish on Lit any more. In this situation, Lit's policy is actively working against them, because high end writers are no longer publishing on their site. And for what? So Lit can protect a revenue stream that's not even protected by this policy?

Literotica has a policy against using this site for "teasers" - some authors have posted partial stories here and then told readers "if you want to see how it ends, go buy the last chapter", that kind of thing. From what you'd described, it's not hard to believe that Laurel took your essay as an ad.

Don't really understand how you can make that judgement. In actual fact, it was simply this line :-

"The Ingrams series is also designed to be a three volume Ebook on Kindle and Nook, which I’ll do once the conclusion is complete. Two volumes are available, with extra, unpublished stores in them, and the third is coming soon."

Does that sound like a teaser to you?

The competition thing. Yeah, so $325 given away per month, yeah, that sure adds up. I mean really. That's kinda weak sauce in terms of the money we are talking about in terms of what Lit is worth and what it brings in, don't you think?

Kudos though. I wouldn't have thought to bring that in as an argument, since it's so weak

 

[Bramblethorn]

Any of them. All of them. It doesn't take much to go look it up?

"all of them"

lol.

Yes, they are. But, in legal sense, it doesn't matter, because unless it's proven that you are using anti-competitive measures to remain on top, then that's just good old capitalism at work.

Okay. Show me a case where a court has held that it's illegal for a business to refuse to host unpaid ads for its competitors.

I am quite confused by this. Are you suggesting that me, being able to point at specific stuff I have released as Ebook content is somehow going to make it easier for my work to be pirated?

Nope. It creates an incentive for people to do so, because posting pirated content to Lit would give them an opportunity to advertise their paid stuff.

They left to only create content for Ebooks, and not publish on Lit any more.

...proving that Literotica is not a monopoly.

"The Ingrams series is also designed to be a three volume Ebook on Kindle and Nook, which I’ll do once the conclusion is complete. Two volumes are available, with extra, unpublished stores in them, and the third is coming soon."

Does that sound like a teaser to you?

"...with extra, unpublished stores [sic] in them" - yes, that's pretty much the definition of a teaser. You are advertising to readers that they can get a better version with more content elsewhere.

The competition thing. Yeah, so $325 given away per month, yeah, that sure adds up.

I have terrible news for you about what publishing pays in the outside world.

I mean really. That's kinda weak sauce in terms of the money we are talking about in terms of what Lit is worth and what it brings in, don't you think?

Oh? How much does Lit bring in, then?

I've been reading this site for near on twenty years, thousands of stories. I don't think I've ever clicked on a single one of the ads that shows here. Have you?

 

[jezzaz]

Okay. Show me a case where a court has held that it's illegal for a business to refuse to host unpaid ads for its competitors.

Ahh Now we get into what is called "putting words into my mouth", or, in legal terms, leading a witness or at worst, gas-lighting.

What I said was that it's illegal for a company to artificially restrict it's usage patterns that mean it stays on top, at the expense of other people / companies.

And that is still true. Trying to rephrase it in such a way that is a) not what I actually said, and b) not a true representation of the situation is clever, but not useful. It's not a discussion of what is actually happening, but a discussion of what you'd rather talk about, because you feel that is winnable.

If you really want discussions about anti-trust examples, I can give you tons. Microsoft vs The Government, Ma Bell vs The Government, the current Epic Vs Apple/Google fight, etc etc.

These are all examples of the same thing, albeit in different avenues. All about monopolistic enterprises abusing their positions to remain where they are, and stifling competition. I don't see how stifling writers from being able to talk about avenues of $ for themselves can be seen as anything other than stifling competition.

Nope. It creates an incentive for people to do so, because posting pirated content to Lit would give them an opportunity to advertise their paid stuff.

Any more than they already can, by just copying the stuff and dropping the ebooks anyway? I mean, I'm still at a loss on this one. There seems to be some line in your head between "if I can talk about an ebook in my story / essay, then it'll lead it getting ripped off more" that I just have difficulty seeing.

I think I understand it, but it's tenuous at best, and such an edge case in terms of "this makes it worse" that I don't see how it's even worth mentioning.

...proving that Literotica is not a monopoly.

Errr, no, that's not how it works. Literotica is a monopoly in legal terms because it has 10x the view throughput of any other free story site. You are choosing to focus on the words 'publishing' because if you ignore the 'free' part, then it looks like you are right. But no, in this case, we cannot.

If you keep denying this, then there really is no discussion - I'll just keep referring to what the legal profession describes it as - you know, the people who do the suing and go to court and all - and you can just keep referring to it as whatever you want it to be.

"...with extra, unpublished stores [sic] in them" - yes, that's pretty much the definition of a teaser. You are advertising to readers that they can get a better version with more content elsewhere.

And, I shouldn't be allowed to? I've given this site a free one, and because I've done that, I shouldn't be allowed to talk about one that could actually earn me $? That devalues the free stuff I've put on this site, - that their entire site is based on - does it?

I have terrible news for you about what publishing pays in the outside world.

Well yeah, that's a fair comment I am quite aware of how shitty it is out there, and how hard it is to get a following and promote your stuff over the sea of crap out there, you are quite right.

But can't you see how this policy just makes that significantly worse? I can't bring my audience with me to potentially a paying situation. The argument there, of course, is that this is a zero sum game. If I take my audience to an Ebook, where they are paying for the content, then they are not here, on Lit.

But that's just absurd. Books and reading are not a zero sum game in that way. Lit is free. It's _always_ going to be the first stop for readers wanting a free shot of something saucy. I'm not taking anyone away from Lit by being able to say "Hey, there's a non free version over there". If they want to buy it, they will. But that doesn't mean they suddenly aren't going to click on an ad, or read a story here. That's just silly to imagine that.

The act of bringing an audience with me does not mean they stop going somewhere else where the content is free, and I will just ignore any arguments that suggest that is true, because that's not even worth talking about.

Oh? How much does Lit bring in, then?

I've been reading this site for near on twenty years, thousands of stories. I don't think I've ever clicked on a single one of the ads that shows here. Have you?

Ah, this is a good question.

I don't know how much Lit brings in, but it's enough to pay for Manu and Laurel full time, and to pay for the site bandwidth (which I'd think is not that huge, since it's all text, but still sheer volume probably adds up), servers and maintenance, and also for them to give away $3900 per year in monthly contests.

But that's not that material, because that's not how websites are valued regardless. I know way more about this, since this is in my professional purview.

Websites are valued at the unique eyeballs they can command. Ads, well, you get paid per eyeball at the lowest rate, then extra if they are actually clicked on. It doesn't matter if you or I click on a ad, Lit is getting paid anyway. It's a ridiculously small amount, for sure, a fraction of a penny - but it's there and at volume it does add up. This is why Manu and Laurel are so desperate to not allow their audience go anywhere else - because these things only work at scale, they can't afford any dip in that volume, and so they are going to great lengths to try and prevent any avenues where that happens.

But that's not what the overall worth of a website is anyway, that's just day to day working capital revenue.

When WhatsApp was sold to Facebook, for $19.3B, the value is arrived at by giving a specific value to each unique user. The average for these kinds of acquisitions is around $3 per user, perhaps as much as $5, depending on the site/app. WhatsApp had 400 million users at the time Facebook bought them, which allows us to know that the average user was given a value of about $4 (there's some excess there, but that's for the value of the brand, the infrastructure, the institutional knowledge possessed by the workers, etc.)

So, given that, how many users do you think Lit has? A million? Ten million? That's identifiable users, that they can accurately claim to have. How many anons do you think they have?

Lit is worth a metric fuckload, assuming they could find a purchaser, who is prepared to have a smut story website on their roster, and who could explain it to their shareholders.

Of course, it's not worth shit until it's sold, but, still... the potential value here is astronomical. I'm kinda surprised it hasn't been sold already to be honest, since the cash out potential here is huge.

Anyway, getting off topic here a bit.

 

[jaF0]

That, unfortunately, is not the way a monopoly is judged.

This is not a monopoly. This is a privately owned site that lets people publish stories for free. But they have rules. One is that they don['t want it used as a signpost to other 'for profit' sites. Follow the rules or don't.

 

[yibala2]

"I don't think I've ever clicked on a single one of the ads that shows here."

I've clicked on links for author's books for sale and websites in their author profiles and here on the forum. The author's profile is the logical place to go for someone who wants to know where to find that more of that author's work outside of Literotica. Any reader can also directly contact the author that way.

What I wouldn't do is sift through the author's menu of writings for an essay or story that has links to their books for sale - even if I didn't know there was a prohibition against it.

Disallowing ads in stories seems like a perfectly reasonable rule on a site that is all about providing free stories.

And what does Literotica have a monopoly on? Not sex stories. Not free sex stories. Any one of us could create our own free sex story website in a matter of days, or upload (free!) stories to Amazon (and/or Smashwords, etc.) with access to a larger audience than Lit has. So what barrier is there to competition?

I guess I don't see the problem. If Lit allows you to link outside from your profile, link from every single forum post, place ads on the forum, and allows readers to directly contact you, how oppressive is it that you can't link within a story?

-Yib

 

[jezzaz]

This is not a monopoly

*Sigh*. There's just this mentality out there that "if I say it enough, and want to believe it enough, it'll be true."

Yeah, it is a legal monopoly, and just denying that doesn't make it true. Just for shits and giggles, I had a conversation with another lawyer at a different company from my tame lawyer friend today, to ask. He laughed, and said, "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are, it's a duck."

But, if that's where you are coming from, there is clearly no discussion to be had.

You can be a privately held website that makes the rules all you want, until those rules are proven to be in place to restrict competition. And then you are a monopoly, whether people here want to believe that or not. This is what Anti-Trust laws exist to combat. But hey, by the logic above, they shouldn't need to exist at all, right?

 

[jezzaz]

And what does Literotica have a monopoly on? Not sex stories. Not free sex stories. Any one of us could create our own free sex story website in a matter of days, or upload (free!) stories to Amazon (and/or Smashwords, etc.) with access to a larger audience than Lit has. So what barrier is there to competition?

I think this very selectively, but very specifically ignores all the text above. By that logic, you can go away and create a phone and an operating system and a store and compete with Apple. They are not stopping competition either. But no one can do that, because no one can do that at scale.

Financial ability to compete is just as much a reason for monopoly than anything.

The entire point is that scale is what makes a monopoly, and there's this wilful desire here to just ignore that fact.

Whatever. You believe what you want

I've clicked on links for author's books for sale and websites in their author profiles and here on the forum.

f Lit allows you to link outside from your profile, link from every single forum post, place ads on the forum, and allows readers to directly contact you, how oppressive is it that you can't link within a story?

Because, and I can't believe I have to point this out, the number of people who are in the forum is a fraction of the number of people who hit the front end for a quick fix of a story.

Interacting in a forum requires signing up. Less than 10% of the people who will hit a website like Lit will ever do that, if only for the embarrassment factor if anyone finds out. And a 10% conversion rate is like fucking astronomical anyway. It's almost certainly less than that, but I wouldn't like to guess.

People who frequent forums like this a lot tend to view it as the whole world, but the reality is that it's a fraction of the people who hit the main site, looking for a free story. If you guys honestly believe that this forum gets even 30% of the interaction the main site gets, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Ergo, being able to advertise in a story on the main site is worth at least 10x what it's worth advertising in here.

 

[jaF0]

You can be a privately held website that makes the rules all you want, until those rules are proven to be in place to restrict competition.

Can you walk into McDonald's and hold up a sign advertising Burger King?

 

[SimonDoom]

That, unfortunately, is not the way a monopoly is judged.
.

The standard definition of "monopoly" is the exclusive control over the supply of a product or service.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monopoly.

Being the largest and most successful enterprise in a particular field does not make one a monopoly under US law, which is what would apply, since Literotica is based in the US. McDonald's is the biggest fast food franchise, but it's not a monopoly. The standard for proving something is a monopoly is rather high. To my knowledge Facebook has not yet been adjudged a monopoly (although it might be eventually). Nor has Amazon, despite their dominance of market share.

Literotica is not a monopoly, in this sense. No one can claim that it controls the supply of erotic stories. Despite being a big player in that field, there are tons of competitors. I don't know what the numbers are but I would imagine that a minority of all erotic story readers get their stories from Literotica. So it's not a monopoly, in a dictionary, economic, or legal sense.


Under US antitrust law, the Sherman Act, 15 USC sections 1-38, however, a case can be made against a business enterprise for an antitrust violation if it exercises "monopoly power", which doesn't quite require showing exclusive control. The United States Supreme Court has defined "monopoly power" as "the power to control prices or exclude competition." United States v. E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (Cellophane), 351 U.S. 377, 391 (1956).

Does Literotica have monopoly power? Of course not. It has no ability at all to exclude competition or to affect prices, since it doesn't charge prices at all. Literotica's model is about as consumer-friendly as one could possibly imagine, since it charges nothing, does not tie the consumption of its products to the purchase of anything else, has minimal requirements for its readers and authors, and does nothing to crowd others out of the market (as far as I know).


Do its products or practices have any other sort of anticompetitive effect? I don't see how. The only result of its practice is that it mildly restricts your ability to use its services to direct its readers to your stories at another location. Hard to see how that's anticompetitive in a troubling sense.

To make a persuasive argument that Literotica is involved in an unlawful anticompetive act, you'd have to cite some solid authority for it and explain exactly what sort of anticompetitive practice this is. I can't think of any to which this behavior is analogous.

I'm not disputing you have a beef with the rule in general, and I'm sure there are things Laurel and Manu could do differently, but it sure seems to me that whether or not this rule is sensible it seems to pass legal muster.

I would not attach much weight to casual legal opinions. The advice you are getting has no more weight than what you're paying for it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I would not attach much weight to casual legal opinions. The advice you are getting has no more weight than what you're paying for it.

But Simon, his legal buddy talked about ducks quacking. That's got to be a good legal argument, right? Sign me up for advice .

 

[Bramblethorn]

Ahh Now we get into what is called "putting words into my mouth", or, in legal terms, leading a witness or at worst, gas-lighting.

What I said was that it's illegal for a company to artificially restrict it's usage patterns that mean it stays on top, at the expense of other people / companies.

The restriction you're complaining about with Literotica is that they're refusing to host unpaid ads for their competitors. (Or rather, that they're putting limitations on where we can place those ads.)

If you don't believe that this is illegal, then it's not clear to me what you think your case is.

If you do think it's illegal, then I repeat: can you find any legal precedent where a court held this kind of thing to be illegal conduct?

If you really want discussions about anti-trust examples, I can give you tons. Microsoft vs The Government, Ma Bell vs The Government, the current Epic Vs Apple/Google fight, etc etc.

What I actually asked for was not "discussion" but legal precedent. Since the Epic v. Apple/Google cases are still before the courts, it should be obvious that they don't (yet) set legal precedent.

The Bell breakup was resolved by a consent decree, which means that the court never ended up making a ruling on whether AT&T's conduct broke the law. Again, not legal precedent.

The only one of your examples that could constitute legal precedent - since it actually went to a judgement - is United States v. Microsoft Corp. The argument there, which the judge bought, was that MS were using their power in the operating system market to force people buying Windows to take Internet Explorer as a package deal, and then make it difficult to uninstall. (MS also didn't help their case by presenting falsified evidence!)

Literotica isn't doing this. They don't have the kind of near-monopoly over erotica that MS has over operating systems, and they are not using what market share they do have to force consumers to buy another product or constrain consumers' ability to go elsewhere. If visiting Literotica hacked your browser to make Literotica your home page and stop you from visiting Amazon or SOL, now, that might be more comparable to US v. MS.

These are all examples of the same thing, albeit in different avenues. All about monopolistic enterprises abusing their positions to remain where they are, and stifling competition. I don't see how stifling writers from being able to talk about avenues of $ for themselves can be seen as anything other than stifling competition.

Cool. I demand that you run ads for my e-books in your stories. If you say no, you're "stifling competition".

Any more than they already can, by just copying the stuff and dropping the ebooks anyway? I mean, I'm still at a loss on this one. There seems to be some line in your head between "if I can talk about an ebook in my story / essay, then it'll lead it getting ripped off more" that I just have difficulty seeing.

Nope. Read it again: "posting pirated content to Lit would give them an opportunity to advertise their paid stuff."

There's already a financial incentive for people to steal stories from Literotica and sell them on Amazon, and we see this happening on the regular.

What people don't currently have is a financial incentive to post stolen stories on Literotica. It happens occasionally, because some people are content to bask in unearned applause, but that's far less of a powerful motive.

As soon as you allow advertising in stories, spammers have much more incentive to post stolen material here, which then degrades the site experience for readers and undoubtedly creates a world of headaches for L&M.

Errr, no, that's not how it works. Literotica is a monopoly in legal terms because it has 10x the view throughput of any other free story site. You are choosing to focus on the words 'publishing' because if you ignore the 'free' part, then it looks like you are right. But no, in this case, we cannot.

Your very first sentence in this thread was about wanting to get paid for your stories. Your complaint was that Lit wasn't allowing you to advertise your paid stories. Every single one of the cases you presented as relevant to this discussion is about commercial markets: MS was selling operating systems and browsers, Bell/AT&T were selling phone services, Epic are selling in-game currency.

The main point of anticompetition law is to prevent consumers from getting stiffed. In all of those cases, one can make the argument that the (alleged) "monopoly" behaviour is pushing up prices, resulting in a worse deal for the consumer.

Here? The consumer is "people who read erotic stories" and if you want to argue that Literotica is pushing up the price of erotic stories to the consumer... well, good luck with that. If you can make that argument, there's a Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in it for you.

I'm not aware of any antitrust cases that upheld this concept of "monopoly within the free sector of the market" in the way that you're trying to invoke here. I very much doubt that any US court would recognise it.

If you keep denying this, then there really is no discussion - I'll just keep referring to what the legal profession describes it as - you know, the people who do the suing and go to court and all - and you can just keep referring to it as whatever you want it to be.

I repeat: "lol".

It's pretty clear that you have no legal credentials whatsoever. You don't know how to cite a case properly (it's "v." not "vs", and plaintiff goes first) and you don't understand what "legal precedent" means.

But if you really think you have a case against Literotica, by all means go pay a lawyer for a professional opinion on this. I predict they'll give you a more verbose and more expensive version of "lol".

And, I shouldn't be allowed to? I've given this site a free one, and because I've done that, I shouldn't be allowed to talk about one that could actually earn me $? That devalues the free stuff I've put on this site, - that their entire site is based on - does it?

Looks like the site owners reckon it does. You might think they're wrong, but arguing it with me is pointless - it's their site and they get to make that call, in exactly the same way that they get to decide they're not going to host under-age or bestiality.

I don't know how much Lit brings in, but it's enough to pay for Manu and Laurel full time, and to pay for the site bandwidth (which I'd think is not that huge, since it's all text, but still sheer volume probably adds up), servers and maintenance, and also for them to give away $3900 per year in monthly contests.

But that's not that material, because that's not how websites are valued regardless. I know way more about this, since this is in my professional purview.

Websites are valued at the unique eyeballs they can command. Ads, well, you get paid per eyeball at the lowest rate, then extra if they are actually clicked on. It doesn't matter if you or I click on a ad, Lit is getting paid anyway. It's a ridiculously small amount, for sure, a fraction of a penny - but it's there and at volume it does add up. This is why Manu and Laurel are so desperate to not allow their audience go anywhere else - because these things only work at scale, they can't afford any dip in that volume, and so they are going to great lengths to try and prevent any avenues where that happens.

But that's not what the overall worth of a website is anyway, that's just day to day working capital revenue.

When WhatsApp was sold to Facebook, for $19.3B, the value is arrived at by giving a specific value to each unique user. The average for these kinds of acquisitions is around $3 per user, perhaps as much as $5, depending on the site/app. WhatsApp had 400 million users at the time Facebook bought them, which allows us to know that the average user was given a value of about $4 (there's some excess there, but that's for the value of the brand, the infrastructure, the institutional knowledge possessed by the workers, etc.)

So, given that, how many users do you think Lit has? A million? Ten million? That's identifiable users, that they can accurately claim to have. How many anons do you think they have?

As this is your job, you know as well as I do that this question is meaningless without defining how "users" are to be measured - the numbers, and likewise the value per user, will be vastly different depending on whether we're talking DAUs, WAUs, MAUs, or some other metric.

Over the course of its twenty-year existence, Literotica has had about five million user accounts created. Obviously many of those are no longer active. So "ten million identifiable users" would obviously be way too high - I'd be surprised if there were a million MAUs out of the registered accounts.

There certainly will be a lot of anons on top of that, but counting them is hard. Some will simply be registered users who didn't bother to log in, and the same measures that privacy-conscious users employ to protect their anonymity also make it difficult to identify duplicates. Anonymity also makes it harder to collect demographic information on those users. How do you factor that into a valuation?

I can't see how you got that "about $4 per user" figure for the WhatsApp purchase. Facebook offered ~$19 billion for WA; at ~ 400 million users (I think that's MAUs?) that works out at more like $47 per user. Even subtracting off an allowance for the other factors you mention, it's hard to see how you'd end up with $4. (Actual value of the buyout ended up being a bit higher than that, because part of it was in FB shares that went up in value.)

Comparing that $47-minus-a-bit to the more typical value of $3/user that you mention helps illustrate just how variable these prices are, and how unsafe it is to assume you can apply a standard price without considering the individual context.

As I'm sure you know, FB's purchase of WA was rather unusual. It was influenced by the fact that WA was seen as a rising competitor to FaceBook Messenger, and the MAU data doesn't tell the whole story - WhatsApp had much higher engagement numbers than Messenger (great DAU/MAU ratio, pictures shared per day) and they were gaining a million users a day, which is huge. No wonder FB was prepared to offer a very good deal to take care of the threat quickly, instead of dickering around while their competitor got bigger and more expensive and perhaps got bought by a rival.

Literotica is a very different picture. It's been around for 20 years, it's not growing particularly fast, and users + brand recognition are probably about the only saleable assets it has, since it doesn't own copyright to the stories. By my understanding the IT maintenance side of things depends heavily on volunteers, and there's no guarantee they'd stay if the site was bought out, especially not uncompensated.

 

[Bramblethorn]

"I don't think I've ever clicked on a single one of the ads that shows here."

I've clicked on links for author's books for sale and websites in their author profiles and here on the forum. The author's profile is the logical place to go for someone who wants to know where to find that more of that author's work outside of Literotica. Any reader can also directly contact the author that way.

Oh absolutely. I have links like that in my profile and signature, and I know readers have followed them to go pay money for e-book versions of the stuff that they already read here for free. (Not exactly a lot of readers, but over time, a couple of hundred bucks' worth.)

My comment wasn't about that kind of ad, though - I was talking there about the banner ads that the site runs, the cam shows etc. I have to think the revenue on those is tiny.

 

[Bramblethorn]

*Sigh*. There's just this mentality out there that "if I say it enough, and want to believe it enough, it'll be true."

Yeah, it is a legal monopoly, and just denying that doesn't make it true. Just for shits and giggles, I had a conversation with another lawyer at a different company from my tame lawyer friend today, to ask. He laughed, and said, "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are, it's a duck."

Okay then. If your lawyers say it's an illegal monopoly, you should definitely sue Literotica. Given the extensive legal knowledge that you've demonstrated in this discussion, you could probably save money by representing yourself.

Let us know how that works out for you.

 

[jezzaz]

But Simon, his legal buddy talked about ducks quacking. That's got to be a good legal argument, right? Sign me up for advice

You think you know better than an entertainment lawyer who charges $550 an hour?

Yeah, I think I'll take his advice over yours.