Here it comes

[lovecraft68]

Stealing this from the paypal clamp down thread.

It was originally posted there by Mia Erotica. A link from Selena Kitt's blog.'

http://theselfpublishingrevolution.b...ensorship.html

Now that it is not just incest/rape/ beastiality, but BDSM and pretty much everything else let's see if anyone chooses to try to do anything but squawk.

Although the article says it is going to be tough on self publishers, it is hitting home with even publishers like excessia.

there is a petition on the link and honestly it's time to start one on amazon as well about carrying erotica and not caving to censorship as they allegedly said they would not.

Put up or shut up time is here.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Oh for fuck's sake, dude. This is not about morality at all, and it never was.

What I discovered was that most merchant-services (i.e. companies that allow you to use Visa and MasterCard on their site) which allow adult products charge a $5000 up-front fee to use their service. Then, they take exorbitant percentages from each transaction. Some 5%, some 14%, some as high as 25%.

Now it was starting to make more sense. The credit card companies charge higher fees for these "high-risk" accounts because there is a higher rate of what they call "chargebacks." You know that protection on your credit card, where if you dispute the charge, you don't have to pay for it? Well they've determined that happens more with porn and gambling and other "high-risk" sites than others, so they're justified in charging more money to process payment for those sites.

Paypal doesn't want to have to pay Visa and MC for carrying "high risk" accounts on their books. You have to remember that Paypal is a middleman. Sites that carry high-risk material have to pay the high-risk costs of doing business. If you're going through Paypal, you don't have to pay that. Until Paypal catches you. And then they insist you take down your high-risk content or lose your account.

Really, fucking simple.

What we all can do about it-- I don't yet have an answer for that.

 

[lovecraft68]

Oh for fuck's sake, dude. This is not about morality at all, and it never was.



Really, fucking simple.

What we all can do about it-- I don't yet have an answer for that.

Of course it is not technically about morality, but that is the guise they are running under. As if they are trying to take a stance against "questionable material" Be it from paypal or the CC companies, that is the ruse. They certainly can't clamp down on Harry Potter books.

Why they are adamant about costing themselves business is admittedly something I can't comprehend, but right now they are swinging the axe and everyone is falling for it.

 

[sr71plt]

but that is the guise they are running under.

Stella just showed that it isn't. Cite sources on them claiming it is.

You're going to sign a petition and then what? Are you signing as one of thousands of no-name authors of a pile of offerings or as a verifiable significant block of purchasers? If you don't think there's a difference, you just don't understand.

And don't just say that I don't want to stem this. I'd had a book banned by Amazon (habu's Doubled) and then had it negotiated back on sale. Have you?

I look for ways that aren't obviously wheels' spinning, couched in ignorance and naivite, and time/effort wasting. You're way out of your depth here.

(And a hint: Selena rattling the rafters on this is largely a marketing tool. The first time she did it, her sales skyrocketed on other distribution sites--as did mine with Doubled. To some extent, you're being used, dude. )

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Not sure why, but the link isn't working for me.

Q_C

 

[Darkniciad]

Because he copied the link from another post rather than copying the URL itself.

Common mistake on Lit, because the forum automatically truncates the displayed URL to a certain length.

http://theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com/2012/02/slippery-slope-erotica-censorship.html

That one should work for you.

I've got no problem boosting Selena's sales

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Thanx, Dark. How been?

Q_C

 

[Darkniciad]

Same as always. Woefully behind where I should be on several stories and fighting through a motivation rut

 

[Stella_Omega]

Of course it is not technically about morality, but that is the guise they are running under. As if they are trying to take a stance against "questionable material" Be it from paypal or the CC companies, that is the ruse. They certainly can't clamp down on Harry Potter books.

People don't buy Harry Potter books and then claim identity theft when their wife looks at their statement.

Why they are adamant about costing themselves business is admittedly something I can't comprehend, but right now they are swinging the axe and everyone is falling for it.

Because they have to cover heavier losses on adult items. How is this complicated?

 

[3113]

People don't buy Harry Potter books and then claim identity theft when their wife looks at their statement.

I do. How could I admit to my husband that I was reading Rowling rather than LeGuin? It was too embarrassing.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I do. How could I admit to my husband that I was reading Rowling rather than LeGuin? It was too embarrassing.

If you had a wife though...

You could admit it to me. I'm accepting that way.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

If you had a wife though...

You could admit it to me. I'm accepting that way.

Nuh-uh!

Remember the whole Eragon fiasco?

 

[3113]

Nuh-uh!

Remember the whole Eragon fiasco?

There are limits to even what the most understanding spouse is willing to accept. Rowling might be a sleep-on-the-couch offense, but Eragon...I doubt you'd even be given time to pack your bags

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Getting back on topic, it does seem a rather dangerous chilling effect.

I'm sure the heavier financial risk of chargebacks is part of this, but the main problem is again the failure to divide a clear cut-off point of what is and isn't acceptable. If it was purely financial, why are they bothering to home in on incest, pseudo-incest, etc? Surely all erotica, as an adult entertainment product, carries the same increased chargeback risk.

Bestiality, paedophilia and necrophilia are out of bounds. Now it seems like Incest (including pseudo-incest) and Rape (including the non-consent/unwilling fantasies) are about to join them. What's next? BDSM (as Selena mentioned)? LGBT erotica? In the absense of a clear line, how can an erotica publisher determine what they can or can't publish?

Maybe Selena should merge her publishing imprints and take the 'Lolita defence' - "Erotica, what erotica? We sell literary fiction here?"

 

[R. Richard]

One, rather small, step that we can take is titles. "I Raped My Mother And Sister" might aid sales, but presents a target for the anit-porn crowd. "Family Adventure" describes the same thing, but doesn't raise a fed flag. Just a thought.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well, erotica is also a huge seller. And mush erotica is in about the same class as romance-- pretty much inoffensive to most people's sensibilities.

I am betting that the catgories that have been banned are the ones that cause the most trouble for the merchants because of a high proportion of card disputes.

 

[sr71plt]

If it was purely financial, why are they bothering to home in on incest, pseudo-incest, etc? Surely all erotica, as an adult entertainment product, carries the same increased chargeback risk.

Because the regulations do. The "they" are your elected representatives, responding to the voters with the most influence over them.

Really, you can't sustain being in lalaland about this (or think you're doing anything by signing petitions. In fake names?). There is no secret that the majority of the electorate is publicly (but perhaps not privately, all that much) anti-porn based on a floating definition of what porn is. You can only sustain living in the "land of my own preferred definitions" within limits. At some point you need to deal with the real world as it "is."

If they clamp down to the point of squeezing something I want to write out, I'll be glad that I had the window I had and wait for the next cycle of opportunity to come around. I'm not going to pretend that what "is" can't be. The system jerks around trying to find a tolerable center on such issues as this. The winners are the ones who work the angles and are able to fit in the margins of the jerking.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Well, erotica is also a huge seller. And mush erotica is in about the same class as romance-- pretty much inoffensive to most people's sensibilities.

I am betting that the catgories that have been banned are the ones that cause the most trouble for the merchants because of a high proportion of card disputes.

If you let them take out the offensive categories, they will come back for the inoffensive ones.

Rather than nitpick over which categories are or aren't offensive we should take this quote to heart...

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

...and not give the Ban-It!-Brigade a single inch. They want it all gone, remember.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Because the regulations do. The "they" are your elected representatives, responding to the voters with the most influence over them.

Really, you can't sustain being in lalaland about this (or think you're doing anything by signing petitions. In fake names?). There is no secret that the majority of the electorate is publicly (but perhaps not privately, all that much) anti-porn based on a floating definition of what porn is. You can only sustain living in the "land of my own preferred definitions" within limits. At some point you need to deal with the real world as it "is."

If they clamp down to the point of squeezing something I want to write out, I'll be glad that I had the window I had and wait for the next cycle of opportunity to come around. I'm not going to pretend that what "is" can't be. The system jerks around trying to find a tolerable center on such issues as this. The winners are the ones who work the angles and are able to fit in the margins of the jerking.

Sadly true, but sometimes you have to kick up a bit of a ruckus now and again.

 

[sr71plt]

If you let them take out the offensive categories, they will come back for the inoffensive ones.

Rather than nitpick over which categories are or aren't offensive we should take this quote to heart...

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

...and not give the Ban-It!-Brigade a single inch. They want it all gone, remember.

By doing what . . . exactly? Yammering among yourselves? Signing petitions--in fake names?

It's a high-profit market segment. There are publishers in it. I go with publishers partly for the reason that they have the high-return interest in it and enough investment in it to fight it the most effective, efficient ways. One of my publishers has already fought my only banned title (thus far) back into the catalogs. It's the self-published who are being hit the hardest at the moment. It was their choice to self-publish rather than to try to sign on with a publisher who will carry this sort of bucket for them.

And push come to shove, if the paying market is denied to you (there aren't too many paying markets for authors wanting to write about toe jam either), you can publish for free on sites like Literotica. You have no "right" to be paid for what you write. And if society gets rid of access via sites like this too, you probably should be considering where you and your desires stand in relationship to society.

 

[Stella_Omega]

If you let them take out the offensive categories, they will come back for the inoffensive ones.

Rather than nitpick over which categories are or aren't offensive we should take this quote to heart...

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

...and not give the Ban-It!-Brigade a single inch. They want it all gone, remember.

Dude, we are talking about capitalism here. Not morality. This is NOT about morality, I say again, it's about the Visa/Mastercard systems and how they work, which is to say-- how they profit their owners.

All you have to do is make the stuff more profitable to keep than to remove.

That's what makes an item inoffensive, in this society.

 

[lovecraft68]

By doing what . . . exactly? Yammering among yourselves? Signing petitions--in fake names?

It's a high-profit market segment. There are publishers in it. I go with publishers partly for the reason that they have the high-return interest in it and enough investment in it to fight it the most effective, efficient ways. One of my publishers has already fought my only banned title (thus far) back into the catalogs. It's the self-published who are being hit the hardest at the moment. It was their choice to self-publish rather than to try to sign on with a publisher who will carry this sort of bucket for them.

And push come to shove, if the paying market is denied to you (there aren't too many paying markets for authors wanting to write about toe jam either), you can publish for free on sites like Literotica. You have no "right" to be paid for what you write. And if society gets rid of access via sites like this too, you probably should be considering where you and your desires stand in relationship to society.

hate to break this to you Pilot, but you can yammer all you want about your publishers, they're coming for them as well or have you not noticed that one of your publishers is the one who is calling attention to this and is greatly concerned.

Your problem is this is something that is going to come down to doing not talking which leaves you out.

What can be done? That is admittedly yet to be determined, but my feeling is that another party with the capability of paypal is watching this and someone with some business sense will step up. Just sit on the have.sidelines and let the people with backbones back you up like they always have.

 

[Handley_Page]

Have I missed everything here ? Or missed Anything ?

It strikes me that "political" influence is being brought to bear.
From what I have seen of the candidates, they all seem to have a very "upright" stance on a wide variety of issues to do with sex/ erotica.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Have I missed everything here ? Or missed Anything ?

It strikes me that "political" influence is being brought to bear.
From what I have seen of the candidates, they all seem to have a very "upright" stance on a wide variety of issues to do with sex/ erotica.

Once more I say:

we are talking about capitalism here. Not morality. This is NOT about morality, I say again, it's about the Visa/Mastercard systems and how they work, which is to say-- how they profit their owners.

All you have to do is make the stuff more profitable to keep than to remove.

That's what makes an item inoffensive, in this society.

lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[lovecraft68]

If you let them take out the offensive categories, they will come back for the inoffensive ones.

Rather than nitpick over which categories are or aren't offensive we should take this quote to heart...

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

...and not give the Ban-It!-Brigade a single inch. They want it all gone, remember.

Extremely well said.

And it won't stop with erotica. The next step will be paypal mc/ visa telling me I can't pay for my porn site membership with their services.

After that they'll tell my wife she can't buy anything fun off of Adam and eve anymore. It will keep going.

And we are also looking at this from the retailer point of view. That we are being stopped from selling our product.

There is a reverse going on which is just as bad because basically what they are also doing is now telling us what we can and cannot buy with our own money.

This really is just the start and if they aren't stopped with this it will go even further.

After porn it will become any book deemed controversial, or movie or CD anything Big Brother no longer approves of will be taken away.