Amazon Taking Down Erotica, Removing From Kindles

http://theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-in-book-banning-business.html

by sahaj • 16 years ago

88 89 16 years ago

theselfpublishingrevolution.blogspot.com

prodigal_erik2• 16 years ago

They already demonstrated their power to abuse your property with the 1984 fiasco, and that's the reason I don't own a Kindle. Fortunately it's possible to side-load ebooks from ethical vendors who don't demand an ability to steal your licenses yet keep your money.

http://consumerist.com/2009/07/how-to-load-up-your-kindle-wi...

Whether root access is readily available on a Kindle is unclear to me.

sliverstorm6• 16 years ago

It may have seemed like a fiasco to you, but when the dust settled I still had a copy of 1984 on my Kindle, so from a customer's POV I'm not too worried.

rbanffy8• 16 years ago

Don't forget they can still make your device delete your book. Most probably any content. And it's not hard to think they could brick your device if they wanted to.

Conceivably, with a court order, they could compel your Kindle to tell them what books you have been reading and, given it's 3G capabilities, where you have been.

It's really not your Kindle. You just paid for it.

DannoHung2• 16 years ago

Does anyone know if all of Feedbooks is DRM free? It looks like they're carrying commercial publications now and I don't know of any store aside from programming ones (and Cory Doctrow) that sell DRM free commercial books.

CWuestefeld• 16 years ago

Baen books (http://www.Baen.com ) was a leader in ebooks, and sells only DRM-free, afaik. In fact, they've even got a decent library of entirely free (as in beer) books, to whet your appetite. They publish sci-fi books.

This is one company that "gets it", and I recommend them enthusiastically.

ghshephard• 16 years ago

To be clear, they are currently targeting "Incest" erotica. The irony, of course, is that Amazon's Television Commercial features a women on the beach reading her kindle, and the story on her kindle, is about a boy who has sex with his stepmother. Admittedly, not erotica, but still ironic.

Amazon should feel free to yank whatever it wants off its bookshelves (and, in fact, should probably be a bit more discerning given some of the recent crap they've been selling) - but, I don't know if they should be sending their customers _already purchased_ books into the memory hole.

flipbrad• 16 years ago

You didn't purchase a book. You licensed an ebook. Big difference, in Amazon's mind.

AgentConundrum2• 16 years ago

And that, in a nutshell, is why I don't really want to buy an eReader. They just seem too restrictive.

My girlfriend and I occasionally share books (usually she borrows mine), but my understanding is that the books you "buy" are licensed only to a single device, and you can only share a book one time, and even then only if the publisher allows it.

I could be misunderstanding things, but it seems like if she wanted to borrow one of my books, she would probably need to borrow my Kindle to do it, and essentially borrow all of my books to read one.

Until things get sorted out, I think I'll pass on the eReaders.

kmfrk• 16 years ago

I think "Erotica" is a bit euphemistic for "incest fantasy".

DougBTX2• 16 years ago

First they came for the incest....

sliverstorm6• 16 years ago

I'm just waiting for the "First they came for Hitler... Then they came for the Nazis..."

(Anyone familiar with the origins of the phrase should see the irony immediately)

Frankly I think it's kind of ridiculous to propose you can't ever give one grimy, muddy, bloodstained inch without being overrun. Niemöller was right, but it doesn't universally apply to EVERY case...

potatolicious2• 16 years ago

Why wouldn't it be erotica, or do we have a problem with people finding unconventional things erotic? Even things that may be shocking/distasteful to you?

Everyone's a freak and a weirdo, and the sooner we lay off other people for their kinks the sooner we may find acceptance for our own.

jonhendry4• 16 years ago

Incest covers everything from two related adults to, say, an adult and an infant, and beyond.

If I were running a store, I wouldn't want to sell baby rape erotica. I wouldn't want to make money that way. If people want to spank to that stuff, it's not my responsibility to assist in any way.

javert2• 16 years ago

A particular bookseller choosing not to sell incest erotica does not constitute a book being "banned" or "censored", which only apply when the government forcibly prevents every bookseller from selling particular material.

I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.

This kind of exaggeration on the part of the blog author doesn't help her argument; it just causes people to (a) lose intellectual respect for the author and (b) give less credence to her argument.

abhaga2• 16 years ago

> A particular bookseller choosing not to sell incest erotica does not constitute a book being "banned" or "censored", which only apply when the government forcibly prevents every bookseller from selling particular material.

Going by that logic, to "effectively" ban the book while not "technically" banning it, the govt just needs to pursue the top few channels to stop carrying it. Book will be effectively unavailable and everyone's conscience will be clean.

> I wouldn't sell incest erotica either, and that doesn't mean I ban or censor books.

But you would make that clear to everyone before starting to do business with them, right? Or if you decided to change your stand one day (which is quite plausible since things do change with time), you would perhaps offer a better reason then "Because I can"?

m_eiman• 16 years ago

Going by that logic, to "effectively" ban the book while not "technically" banning it, the govt just needs to pursue the top few channels to stop carrying it. Book will be effectively unavailable and everyone's conscience will be clean.

Hey, that sounds familiar. Say, for example, that some organization releases a bunch of more or less secret stuff, and you want to prevent them from getting donations to continue releasing stuff, you could just lean a bit on VISA and Mastercard…

javert2• 16 years ago

> Going by that logic...

The government didn't tell Amazon to stop carrying the book, so your point is irrelevant.

> But you would...

Well I haven't really thought about that, because in reading the post, I was just distracted by the exaggeration that I pointed out in my original comment.

jonhendry4• 16 years ago

Exactly. The author is certainly free to put up a website with the stories in a Kindle-compatible, DRM-free format, making them available for free, or using some kind of payment system, perhaps voluntary.

By being knocked out of the store, the author loses easier access to readers, and payment processing. But the author is not blocked from publishing and getting his or her work on the kindle through routes other than Amazon.

tzs• 16 years ago

Is there any independent confirmation of this? Parts of it sound made up.

sliverstorm6• 16 years ago

I actually wrote those incest books as a result of a contest where it was the most popular category on the site...

Maybe you should expand your horizons. grin -- The Author

Ok, I'm all for trying new things and all, but the world-wide cultural taboo against incest exists for a clearly defined reason (ref: Alexei Nikolaevich, for example), not just because we're all a buncha prudes.

nick24862486• 16 years ago

Imo it's because you are just a bunch of prudes. It's just literature which by the way is widely sold worldwide by various bookstores. Besides Amazon accepted the book for publishing, did publish it, allowed people to buy it and now is pulling it off without any compensation for clients/author. Looks like abuse from their side to me.

RexRollman• 16 years ago

Amazon knows that few people will stand up for an unpopular form of fiction.

Kolya• 16 years ago

That isn't a reason against incest per se. It is merely an objection to certain forms of incest - specifically, those that lead to children.

With freely-available contraception and abortion, it's hard to think of any good reason for the absolute cultural taboo against all incest.

One of the goals of literature should be to challenge cultural taboos. Any good bookseller should realize it.

sliverstorm6• 16 years ago

Though it does not thrill me to say so, you make a valid point.

It is worth noting though that cultural mores don't work well with shades of grey- they are best suited to black-and-whites. (i.e. do/don't instead of do this way/don't do that way)

jonhendry4• 16 years ago

"That isn't a reason against incest per se. It is merely an objection to certain forms of incest - specifically, those that lead to children."

And, you know, child rape by a family member. Which is probably, by far, the most common form of incest.

newt• 16 years ago

the world-wide cultural taboo against incest exists for a clearly defined reason

Of course it does. In other news, shooting people in the streets is generally considered bad, yet if you read a few thrillers and watch a few action movies, there will be gun battles. Fiction and real life: not the same.

abhaga2• 16 years ago

Actually, the definition of incest varies wildly across cultures, even among those that are located right next to each other.

Consider this. In certain northern states of India, marriages or relationships within the same village are considered incest and draw very violent reactions ( even leading to deaths). There is a very strong demand to make it into a law. On the other hand, in certain southern states and in some communities in north as well, it is perfectly fine to get married to a cousin from your mother's side.

rmc5• 16 years ago

When some of my readers began checking their Kindle archives for books of mine they’d purchased on Amazon, they found them missing from their archives

I think Amazon (and any bookseller) should be allowed to sell or not sell any sort of book they want. However deleting already paid for books that your customers have bought from their devices is totally unethical IMO.

araneae• 16 years ago

Also unethical is not automatically given them a refund, and then verbally trying to humiliate them over their choice of reading when they request one.

rbanffy8• 16 years ago

It's really easy to imagine something like "what would your kids do if they found out what you have been reading?"

roel_v2• 16 years ago

There's this story, I don't know if it's true, of a business who used to sell gay sex toys (I don't know what is specifically 'gay' about it, let's gloss over this for the sake of the story) from the back of magazine covers. Except they didn't have any inventory or anything - their entire business was to collect payments, guaranteeing 'discrete packaging' etc in the ads; but then call the customer and tell them 'we're out of stock, but we can send you a letter with our logo on it, and when you fill in the form in that letter, we'll send you a cheque from Gay Sex Toys Inc made out to you to reimburse you'. Their business floated on people who didn't want those letters or didn't want to hand in that kind of cheques to their local banks and who just left it at that.

jsolson4• 16 years ago

They are not removing the books from devices -- they are removing them from the Kindle archives. This means it's safe if you've purchased the book, downloaded it, and left it on your device.

At least according to this: http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related...

aidenn0• 16 years ago

But now if you upgrade to a newer kindle, you can't take your books with you.

rprasad3• 16 years ago

Two things: 1) Amazon is not deleting the books from the devices. It is simply removing them from the web-based "Archive" of purchased books. Any books on the device remain on the device, BUT, if the book is deleted on the device, it will be lost forever. 2) Amazon is refunding purchases of these books.

madair2• 16 years ago

the "debate" here is simply the utter failure by so many to recognize power abusing non-power for ideas deemed unsavory

just as is the inability of so many to recognize that it is exactly the same when wikileaks is refused a right to be published via server space

you "debaters" should be ashamed of yourselves...but you won't be. i don't fully understand that part. is it really that hard to see the shape of the nation? the commerce infrastructure? the war, imperialism, peonage, acquiescence to abuses in the name of stability and financial growth.

yet nazis DID exist, and nazis DO exists, and the more often Godwin's crock of a law is pompously imposed the more will exist. ask yourself: how did they exist? were the german middle class simply naturally evil spawn of the devil children waiting to grow up and be spawn of the devil killers? how did they rise? not some macro view, a micro view. how did the middle class of a western nation create the nazi's military machine?

have you considered that they were propagandized? and how did that occur? why was information lacking? is it possible that information was suppressed? who suppressed it?

you are not immune to the very same information deficit which you endorse. you are not immune to the very same fear which envelops the nation.

but you say, "this is incest, i just don't like incest". well, there's lots of things you might not like. perhaps for example consider that 80-90% of you are not gay. presumably you don't read gay fiction. why are gays allowed to have a deviation from your norm while you are selectively willing to determine another deviation from your norm eligible for suppression? try to keep in mind that your cultural norm is a shockingly violent culture filled with shocking amounts of violent fantasy. "oh but i don't like violent fantasy". yeah right, i'm talking to the other 99.9% of you then.

you <--- yes you, reading this, are the middle-class of a western nation with quite a track record, and one that is only getting worse and so very very quickly year upon year of this century.

what questions will people ask 70 years from now to try to understand you. the middle-class "debaters"

metaphors are a powerful force against natural difficulty to place events into context. i would say you're only hurting yourselves, but actually you're hurting us all. You.

drndown2007• 16 years ago

I think you take it too far. Yes, the powerful abusing the weak is not a healthy thing. But there is actually 'bad' in the world that should be suppressed. Unfortunately, there are people (you?) that are willing to say "we can't all agree on what is bad, therefore nothing is bad". That would work, except for the fact that we're human, frail and don't know nearly as much as we think we do.

Since the original article is sex, and you refered to it above, let's continue with it. Try going to an SA (sex addicts) meeting sometime and hear about shattered lives because of what someone did to someone else. I'm going to put my foot down and say rape is bad because of the horrible emotional baggage it leaves in someone's life. Incest is usually in the same category (I personally know a guy who will never have normal relationships because of what his older sister and friend did with him when he was 12).

I'm sure someone (you?) will try to argue there are cases where it's OK, so we shouldn't call rape 'bad'. PLEASE! Sometimes, there ARE things that should be suppressed.

And this doesn't mean anything or everything should be suppressed. If people are suppressing/hiding something because they did wrong (the government) then it should be exposed.

Except, whoops, we just said the government did 'wrong'. That's a value judgement! <sarcasm>Maybe some people think starting fake wars is OK and we shouldn't be so quick to call that unsavory</sarcasm> Value judgements have to be made as long as we're human. Value judgements mean there is 'good' and 'bad'. I don't think we want more 'bad' -- it's bad by definition! If we ever get to the point that we're computers and can hit a reset button, then _maybe_ right and wrong will go away...

So wikileaks and exposing corruption -- good, bring it on, don't suppress it. Encouraging rape or incest, I'm calling bad -- we don't need more of that in society.

(OK, bring on the down votes)

ElliotH• 16 years ago

There is a distinct difference between making something illegal and making writing about something illegal.

There are all sorts of films and books that show crime being committed, sometimes even with the criminals being the good guys. These obviously shouldn't be banned - but the crimes depicted probably should be.

"we can't all agree on what is bad, therefore nothing is bad"

I don't think the parent was arguing for that, indeed I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who truly believes that. He talks exclusively about ideas and fiction.

On a final note its not very classy to 'bait' people to downvote you. It's the reason that I didn't upvote you.

madair2• 16 years ago

wha...?

rape is coercion. good luck on that correlation. if incest is psychologically or physically coerced then it rape as well

incest has a negative physical effect on society as far as i understand it, but i am no expert. it does appear to be a wise for society to ban and even discourage the practice. there is no claim here that all ideas are of equal value. however, it is the expression of the idea which i am discussing, not the value, not the practice.

incest, as you say, may also have negative psychological consequences. however i could make a case that those are because of society, again i am no expert, and that does not diminish the potential social value of discouraging it. in fact i could make the case that despite the big picture problem we're discussing on the individual level the psychological problems induced by over-reactions are a downside to our collective discouragement of the practice. there's no free lunch. and sometimes the lunch costs too much, for example, how many tens of thousands of people are in prison for smoking a herb? society isn't always right (duh). that's why we defend freedom of expression. we don't know what we don't know that we don't know. ;)

again: rape is coercion, and it is expression & not practice or value which i am discussing.

to defend freedom of expression we must defend expression of ideas odious to us (nothing is universally odious). but hey, that's freedom 101, not sure why it needs reminding

and to veer in a different direction: it's also worthwhile to consider that all of the above occur frequently in literature & pulp. i'll venture to guess that rape occurs by far the most. the intellectual age has long passed wherein entertainment containing apparently negative representations of such things can be considered without considering the appetite of the audience. if we make value statements then let's try not be delusional about audience participation (i'm not saying you claim otherwise, just throwing this in the mix)

also: let's not get caught up on blaming the government for oppression, a common thread in all these discussions. amazon doesn't get a free pass by being private. power is power that affects me & you regardless where we shop. the texas board of education censors the ideas available in most american schools via the commercial apparatus of mass production aka efficiency. last i checked i don't live in texas either.

jasongullickson• 16 years ago

I thought that Bezos himself said deleting books from people Kindles was "stupid";

Here we go: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jul/24/amazon...

dhimes• 16 years ago

Thank you for this. I wish I had it before I fired off my email to Amazon...

jsolson4• 16 years ago

He did, and supposedly they're not actually doing that this time: http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related...

re• 16 years ago

Poor title ("Removing From Kindles") on the HN submission:

> A discussion thread on Amazon’s Kindle Community forum notes that Amazon has begun removing some previously-published books or stories from its store, and from the Kindle archives. Readers who have previously downloaded them to their Kindles can keep them there, but cannot re-download them (and will be refunded the price of purchase assuming Amazon can still find the purchase record).

http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related... (linked from the submitted story)

w1ntermute2• 16 years ago

What happened to not deleting books that had already been purchased?

> Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...

jsolson4• 16 years ago

Supposedly they're not deleting them from devices, just from the archives (thus preventing re-downloading the titles): http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related...

SeanDav• 16 years ago

Looks like I will be buying a Kindle or Amazon e-book about the time when hell freezes over....

sigzero• 16 years ago

Why "erotica" in the title and not "incest titles"? I know why. They aren't banning ALL erotica...just a particular one that most people would agree with Amazon on.

rprasad3• 16 years ago

This article is an exaggerated pile of crap. Pardon my language.

Amazon is not taking down erotica. They still have a very large and healthy erotica/romance section.

What they are doing is removing incest-erotica published by Amazon's Createspace. According to the pages the author links to in his post, incest-erotica from other publishers remains available for sale.

Incest, by the way, is illegal in most of America, except possibly in the South. It's no different from Amazon removing bestiality-erotica or pedophilia-erotica published under its own label.

Long story short: if you want to publish incest-erotica, don't publish through Amazon's CreateSpace.

prodigal_erik2• 16 years ago

Murder is illegal everywhere, but writing about it hasn't yet become crimethink.

rprasad3• 16 years ago

Writing about it isn't crimethink. But it's highly undesirable for a commercial company to be associated with incest erotica.

Amazon made a business decision to stop publishing incest-erotica through its own publishing label. It did not ban other publishers from publishing that crap in its store.

ktf• 16 years ago

You know what's full of explicit incest? Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor. It's also one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

But it looks like it's not available on Kindle either, now that I check :)

http://www.amazon.com/Ada-Ardor-Chronicle-Vladimir-Nabokov/d...