Free Speech Problem

[R. Richard]

I use A1AdultEbooks to publish some of my stories. A1AdultEbooks has had major problems with some of their credit card processors. The problems are major suppressions of free speech. If readers don't want to read books with certain subject matter, they don't have to. To prevent others from reading the same, legal subject matter is a major concern of mine. I'm posting this letter, as a means of keeping AH people up to date on the ongoing legal battles.

Urgent news for authors at Fiction4All/A1AdultEbooks!

Hi,

This email is going out to all authors who are registered on our sites as either self-publishing or Exclusive to us.

As some of you will be aware, over the past few days we have experienced major hassles with Zombaio over what they call BRAM violations (content Mastercard doesn`t want us to sell). These are reported to Zombaio by an organisation which scans our websites for certain words and places where bad words contain character subsititutions. So, for example, they would flag up occurences of say `inc3st` which they are clever enough to read as `incest`, as well as the existing list of bad words we hope we are already trapping.

As a result of this we are currently unable to use Zombaio for taking payments, though we do have Verotel and PayPal still in place. Whether we can get Zombaio back on our main sites is debatable at the moment.

Today, as part of getting our new shortstories4adults site vetted, we had a dozen short stories blocked for BRAM violations. Some included the bad words `sleep` or `drink` in the blurb - which are blocked as they infer sexual acts with sleeping or incapacitated people, apparently and Mastercard don`t like that!

The affected titles we have been asked to remove have now been barred on our sites and I am waiting for a rescan to see what they come up with next.

As a result of this ongoing battle with insanity at Mastercard, we are now no longer accepting any submissions that imply any form of incestuous or pseudo incestuous relationship in either the title, blurb, keywords or extract submitted to us. We will also not publish any book where character substitution takes place in any word in the above as clearly that raises eyebrows as well.

So, a title of Frank`s Sex Toy would be okay, but a title of `Daddy`s Sex Toy` would not. Likewise words such as Daddy, daughter, Mommy etc have to be avoided in the titles, blurbs, keywords and extracts if you want your book to be published. Our customers are not stupid and it even adds something to a story if they have to guess as to a possible relationship.

We are tightening up our submissions processes for vetting what we now believe are bad words and applying more rigorous manual checks to books as we publish them. This may slow down our publication process for a while so please bear with us.

Any author that constantly tries to get round the rules, and thus put our future in jeopardy will simply have their books taken off sale and their account closed. We have a big network of sites now and responsibilities to a number of publishers and several hundred authors and I will do what I can to protect the majority against the lunacy of the minority, if I have to.

Once the new shortstories4adults site is approved we will be moving all stories under 15000 words onto it, and one of my assistants will take on the responsibility for getting short story submissions onto that site as quickly as we can. At the same time, short stories will be removed from our other sites. Once that happens we will derestrict the prices you can sell these books for, and willl be introducing facilities for you to set and maintain your own prices as well as to provide us with change requests for covers, blurbs, keywords and extracts once a book is on sale.

Out of all of this, the good news is that we will be paying out a sensational 80% royalty for all short story sales on the new site site so I hope the wait will be worth it in the end.

I will be back in touch later in the month with a further update but for now I`d like to say thank you for your support and I hope that in the end we will be able to attract a lot more interest to the books you write.

 

[topace]

Publish elsewhere in that case.

 

[Handley_Page]

I suspect that if this had happened over here, there would be a real legal row.

 

[Exquisition]

I use A1AdultEbooks to publish some of my stories. A1AdultEbooks has had major problems with some of their credit card processors. The problems are major suppressions of free speech. If readers don't want to read books with certain subject matter, they don't have to. To prevent others from reading the same, legal subject matter is a major concern of mine. I'm posting this letter, as a means of keeping AH people up to date on the ongoing legal battles.

Urgent news for authors at Fiction4All/A1AdultEbooks!

Hi,

This email is going out to all authors who are registered on our sites as either self-publishing or Exclusive to us.

As some of you will be aware, over the past few days we have experienced major hassles with Zombaio over what they call BRAM violations (content Mastercard doesn`t want us to sell). These are reported to Zombaio by an organisation which scans our websites for certain words and places where bad words contain character subsititutions. So, for example, they would flag up occurences of say `inc3st` which they are clever enough to read as `incest`, as well as the existing list of bad words we hope we are already trapping.

As a result of this we are currently unable to use Zombaio for taking payments, though we do have Verotel and PayPal still in place. Whether we can get Zombaio back on our main sites is debatable at the moment.

Today, as part of getting our new shortstories4adults site vetted, we had a dozen short stories blocked for BRAM violations. Some included the bad words `sleep` or `drink` in the blurb - which are blocked as they infer sexual acts with sleeping or incapacitated people, apparently and Mastercard don`t like that!

The affected titles we have been asked to remove have now been barred on our sites and I am waiting for a rescan to see what they come up with next.

As a result of this ongoing battle with insanity at Mastercard, we are now no longer accepting any submissions that imply any form of incestuous or pseudo incestuous relationship in either the title, blurb, keywords or extract submitted to us. We will also not publish any book where character substitution takes place in any word in the above as clearly that raises eyebrows as well.

So, a title of Frank`s Sex Toy would be okay, but a title of `Daddy`s Sex Toy` would not. Likewise words such as Daddy, daughter, Mommy etc have to be avoided in the titles, blurbs, keywords and extracts if you want your book to be published. Our customers are not stupid and it even adds something to a story if they have to guess as to a possible relationship.

We are tightening up our submissions processes for vetting what we now believe are bad words and applying more rigorous manual checks to books as we publish them. This may slow down our publication process for a while so please bear with us.

Any author that constantly tries to get round the rules, and thus put our future in jeopardy will simply have their books taken off sale and their account closed. We have a big network of sites now and responsibilities to a number of publishers and several hundred authors and I will do what I can to protect the majority against the lunacy of the minority, if I have to.

Once the new shortstories4adults site is approved we will be moving all stories under 15000 words onto it, and one of my assistants will take on the responsibility for getting short story submissions onto that site as quickly as we can. At the same time, short stories will be removed from our other sites. Once that happens we will derestrict the prices you can sell these books for, and willl be introducing facilities for you to set and maintain your own prices as well as to provide us with change requests for covers, blurbs, keywords and extracts once a book is on sale.

Out of all of this, the good news is that we will be paying out a sensational 80% royalty for all short story sales on the new site site so I hope the wait will be worth it in the end.

I will be back in touch later in the month with a further update but for now I`d like to say thank you for your support and I hope that in the end we will be able to attract a lot more interest to the books you write.

Trying to work out if this is really useful or just a cleverly disguised attempt at spam advertising.

 

[TxRad]

Trying to work out if this is really useful or just a cleverly disguised attempt at spam advertising.

Not Spam.

 

[MatthewVett]

Just want to point out that free speech only applies to the government and not businesses. AMC has no obligation to play a film of me ranting about politics, nor does Literotica have any obligation to let me post this post. The government, however, can't come in and shut them down if they do, assuming I'm not inciting violence or anything like that.

And now you know!

 

[TinyBeth]

Just want to point out that free speech only applies to the government and not businesses. AMC has no obligation to play a film of me ranting about politics, nor does Literotica have any obligation to let me post this post. The government, however, can't come in and shut them down if they do, assuming I'm not inciting violence or anything like that.

And now you know!

And knowing is half the battle!
Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[LiFeNdEaTh]

Publish elsewhere in that case.

you beat me to it..

 

[sr71plt]

As noted, unless A1AdultEbooks is a government institution, free speech is irrelevant. This is a business's right to do the business it chooses to do--that's something that any ultraconservative or strict constitutionist would fight to protect. Think you need to rethink this.

 

[lovecraft68]

This sounds like the crap paypal was slinging back in January of this year.

That also create a big argument of whether it was business or censorship.

Technically it is business, but it also is a form of censorship, because if it keeps going where will it stop.

Now what happened with paypal was they were claiming the same thing, charge backs and saying it was mastercard and visa and the banks behind this.

When contacted by several bloggers Visa's response was that they had no such policy and had no idea where paypal had gotten that idea.

Paypal was also asked by Mark Coker of Smashowrds to produce the letter they claimed to have received from the banks and cc companies.

Their response was to back off completely. So in the end, it was paypal trying to enforce their beliefs upon everyone and trying to blame the banks. Too bad no one sued their ass from the CC companies for defamation of character.

I suggest this is the same thing. And if they wanted to they can simply say its "our policy" and that would be the end of it, but like PP they are most likely lying.

But they also sound like a small operation and as others said just publish elsewhere.

 

[R. Richard]

I suspect that if this had happened over here, there would be a real legal row.

It's happening in the UK, where the publisher is based.

 

[R. Richard]

As noted, unless A1AdultEbooks is a government institution, free speech is irrelevant. This is a business's right to do the business it chooses to do--that's something that any ultraconservative or strict constitutionist would fight to protect. Think you need to rethink this.

A1AdultEbooks is NOT the problem. It's one of their credit card processors.

As has been pointed out, it's the same problem that A1AdultEbooks and others had with PayPal. Enough nasty lettters were apprently writtren to PayPal that they backed down.

A business doesn't have the right to do what business that it choses. It can chose to do business or not to do business. However, the credit card processor is now telling A1AdultEbooks how to run A1AdultEbooks' business. A1AultEbooks has chosen not to do business with the credit card processor, at least for the time being. However, in most jurisdictions, it's not allowable to tell someone else how to run their business. A1AdultEbooks is based in the UK and the UK doesn't have a constitution.

If I'm a retailer, I can do business with Apple or not, as I please. However, it's not legal for Apple to tell me, "If you want to carry our product, you must not sell any other cell phone but Apple. Also, it's not legal to set punitive price points if a retailer wants to sell other brands. The legal points have been argued in courts in th EU and the USA.

I do publish a few books with A1AdultEbooks and make a few quid. I can publish elsewhere and do. However, I don't like a third party to tell A1AdultEbooks if they can publish my books or not. (None of my books are currently affected.)

 

[sr71plt]

A1AdultEbooks is NOT the problem. It's one of their credit card processors.

Are you so dense that I have to go down the line on this for you to get it? The credit card processors aren't government institutions either. It's not a freedom of speech issue. Stop being so dense. Private businesses don't have to provide services they don't want to. It's a key "right" of business that you ultraconservatives and strict construction constitutionalists insist on. There is no "right" to do business with a business that doesn't want to do business with you. Freedom of speech has absolutely no bearing here. (How many times would I and others need to repeat that for you to get it?)

There are some exceptions, of course--ones that have been legislated by the government you despise--but the transactions you're dealing with aren't included. You've being bit in the butt by the same power of business that you rant about protecting--the right of businesses to do business without government interference.

 

[sr71plt]

Another run at this. What you are trying to assert is the right of equal access for specific services, not the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has absolutely no bearing in what's happening to you.

The operable "right" here is the business's right to do the business it chooses to do (a right actively protected by those of your political persuasion). If they put out newspapers, they don't have to put out a newspaper with your essays in it just because you have freedom of speech. They don't even have to print all of the letters to the editors they receive--or even a representative collection based on content position. And if they say no, they aren't impinging on your freedom of speech; they are saying they aren't in the business to support your specific business/views. Any business that says it doesn't want to service the sale of porn/erotica doesn't have to. They have the right, for instance, not to engage in some or all of their services in Philadelphia even though the business is headquartered in New York City and does do business in Trenton. They have the right to choose what business they do where.

These businesses have chosen not to do business with porn/erotica. They have a right to do this; you don't have a right to make them serve your porn/erotica business needs. (Or mine either--I'm sure I'm not happy with this turn of events either--but I don't kid myself about the businesses' right to do it. Which means the effort should go into getting them to change their mind, not with hitting them with rights that you don't have--especially in areas that don't apply.)

Would they have a right not to do business with someone simply because they were black? No, the government has closed that ability (and ultraconservatives like you fought the government tooth and nail on doing this, screaming government interference). Would they have a right not to do business with someone simply because they were a woman. Yep. The Augusta National Golf Club is starting to admit women because of public pressure--not because they couldn't legally refuse to do business with women. Would they have a right not to do business with someone who was gay. Yep, no protection for them. Do they have the right not do engage in porn/erotic business servicing if they don't want to? Absolutely.

So, if you want that to change you need to drop your wrong-headed "freedom of speech" argument and combine with others to make the businesses change their minds for business reasons--not for reasons of your nonapplicable "rights."

You can't limit the rights of businesses just where it's convenient to you to do so.

But then, what the hey, you don't have to believe me, RR. Go hire yourself a lawyer to assert your freedom of speech rights to these folks. Feel free to spend $200 to hear him tell you the same thing. You do have the right to be totally misinformed.

 

[R. Richard]

Another run at this. What you are trying to assert is the right of equal access for specific services, not the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has absolutely no bearing in what's happening to you.

The operable "right" here is the business's right to do the business it chooses to do (a right actively protected by those of your political persuasion). If they put out newspapers, they don't have to put out a newspaper with your essays in it just because you have freedom of speech. They don't even have to print all of the letters to the editors they receive--or even a representative collection based on content position. And if they say no, they aren't impinging on your freedom of speech; they are saying they aren't in the business to support your specific business/views. Any business that says it doesn't want to service the sale of porn/erotica doesn't have to. They have the right, for instance, not to engage in some or all of their services in Philadelphia even though the business is headquartered in New York City and does do business in Trenton. They have the right to choose what business they do where.

The business involved is called Zombaio. Zombaio doesn't deal with authors, they deal with a publisher. Zombaio has the right to refuse to do business with a publisher. Zombaio IS NOT refusing to deal with said publisher. What Zombaio appears to be doing is what is called in the USA an illegal secondary boycott. Zombaio is refusing to allow processing of certain of said publisher's authors, despite the fact that Zombaio has no business relationship with said authors. Zomaio deals only with the publisher. The publisher is the only party who deals with the author(s). (What I am basing my response on is USA law and the publisher is domiciled in England.)

These businesses have chosen not to do business with porn/erotica. They have a right to do this; you don't have a right to make them serve your porn/erotica business needs. (Or mine either--I'm sure I'm not happy with this turn of events either--but I don't kid myself about the businesses' right to do it. Which means the effort should go into getting them to change their mind, not with hitting them with rights that you don't have--especially in areas that don't apply.)

Zombaio has the right to refuse to do business with A1AdultEBooks. At least in the USA, Zombaio DOES NOT have the right to (in effect) selectively refuse to deal with some of said A1AdultEBooks customers. (Some of A1AdultEBooks customers are USA citizens.)

Would they have a right not to do business with someone simply because they were black? No, the government has closed that ability (and ultraconservatives like you fought the government tooth and nail on doing this, screaming government interference). Would they have a right not to do business with someone simply because they were a woman. Yep. The Augusta National Golf Club is starting to admit women because of public pressure--not because they couldn't legally refuse to do business with women. Would they have a right not to do business with someone who was gay. Yep, no protection for them. Do they have the right not do engage in porn/erotic business servicing if they don't want to? Absolutely.

Sr71plt, you have, once again missed, the point. I have no idea if Zombaio has the right to refuse to do business with blacks (I'm presuming that you mean Negroes, some Caucasian UK citizens from the tropics have skin as dark as any African) nor do you. at least at the time you wrote your reply. If Zomaio wants to refuse to do business with A1AdultEBooks, they may have the right to do so. If Zombaio is the only UK provider of Mastercard services, they may not have that right. (I would certainly protest if Zombaio refused to deal with Pakis, Africans or Irish. Now scousers, well, one has to draw the line sonewhere. Perhaps someone from the UK could provide some insight here.)

So, if you want that to change you need to drop your wrong-headed "freedom of speech" argument and combine with others to make the businesses change their minds for business reasons--not for reasons of your nonapplicable "rights."

You can't limit the rights of businesses just where it's convenient to you to do so.

I'm not trying to limit the rights of Zombaio to do business with me. (On a practical basis, Zombaio won't do business with me.) I'm trying to say that, under USA laws (I'm a USA citizen,) Zombaio appears to be engaging in an illegal secondary boycott. The effect of said illegal secondary boycott is to limit my USA freedom of speech.

 

[sr71plt]

*Shakes head*

Just doesn't get it.

Do whatever you want RR, and get whatever you get.

 

[ishtat]

Windmill tilting?

RR. I have some experience in running an organization that litigated in the UK and less often the US. I suspect that your chances of even persuading a court to hear your case are negligible in either jurisdiction.

Mere denial of a particular forum is a very weak basis of argument in any context.

 

[R. Richard]

RR. I have some experience in running an organization that litigated in the UK and less often the US. I suspect that your chances of even persuading a court to hear your case are negligible in either jurisdiction.

Mere denial of a particular forum is a very weak basis of argument in any context.

In other words, since there exist other forums, the damage is minor. Thank you, Ishtat.

 

[TxRad]

In other words, since there exist other forums, the damage is minor. Thank you, Ishtat.

What he means is, that the law can't help you.

I would suggest that the court of public opinion would be your best option.

 

[ishtat]

In other words, since there exist other forums, the damage is minor. Thank you, Ishtat.

Law and life ain't necessarily fair RR. We often forget that.