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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
If Smashwords had just said "sorry; can't afford to find another payment processor; not going to carry this kind of content anymore," there wouldn't be half as much outcry against them. Instead, Coker posted a long letter about how it was an "oversight" that Smashwords hadn't always banned the topics PayPal no longer allows..
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But that's the thing, this material has always been banned by PayPal's TOS...it's just that PayPal finally noticed and lowered the hammer.
Sure, Smashwords should have been more specific right up front in their guidelines as to what they will and will not publish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
"Pornographic" has no definition. Obviously, they don't forbid all sexual materials; they allow sex toys to be bought on ebay. .
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Their definition, not mine.
From PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy, see item H: (
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?c...locale.x=en_US)
relate to transactions involving (a) narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or other products that present a risk to consumer safety, (b) drug paraphernalia, (c) items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity, (d) stolen goods including digital and virtual goods (e) items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime, (f) items that are considered obscene, (g) items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction, (h) certain sexually oriented materials or services, (i) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (j) ,certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law.
This leaves them the discretion as to what they will and won't allow. And it does make it entirely possible that Smashwords had no idea this material would be a problem until PayPal sent their nastigram.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
You can decide what's displayed on your lawn. But this isn't about your lawn, nor Paypal's; it's about their business choices. You can't decide not to do business with single mothers (in California), nor to ban gay men from your store. And while you can decide not to allow Scorpios to eat at your restaurant (because you think they're prone to skipping out on their bills), or to refuse to sell alcohol to women wearing blue eye shadow (because you think they're slutty and shouldn't be drinking), you'd be subject to public censure for either of those choices..
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This is exactly the opposite angle of the point I was trying to make, sorry I didn't make myself clear.
Smashwords is not saying they will not service a particular type of customer, they are simply saying that they will not sell a particular type of product...just as WalMart doesn't carry and sell every product in the world or just as you can't buy shoes or rifles or prescription drugs on Smashwords.
Every person and every business has a fundamental right to determine what they will and will not sell.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
I assure you that no credit card company allows necrophilia but not bestiality, and they don't allow explicit rapes in murder mysteries but not in romance stories. Nor do any of them have numbers indicating that ebooks of *any* sort are prone to high chargebacks. (I've been researching alternate payment systems for a while now.).
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This was a theory I had heard, that the credit card companies were pressuring PayPal on certain types of transactions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
The specific form of this ban comes from PayPal, not the credit card companies, and shows both conflation of fiction to reality (implying that fiction about incest is somehow illegal, and so on) and a lack of comprehension of the variety of tropes and literary styles used in fiction..
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So there's evidence that this issue is instigated by PayPal and PayPal alone?
(And I agree, the folks at PayPal are dummies for not getting the distinction between fact and fiction.)
I still think the root of this is fear of a public blowback..."PayPal supports incest books" and all that. Nevermind that the Twilight books feature the same kinds of objectionable material.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Obviously, you have done little or no research into alternate payment methods. The idea's been around for a while... and any organization with several thousand dollars to put up for collateral, and a team of coders to create the shopping cart widget, will be able to do it..
Small start-up businesses are out of luck... which means that *of course* porn is known to be one of the most profitable businesses on the web, because only the ridiculously profitable ones can *have* an up-front business online.
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My point was, you can't force other companies to allow you to sell your products if they don't want to.
In the previous paragraph, you point to alternative methods, implying that there are lots of options...so it should seem that setting up an alternative is viable. I wasn't trying to say it was easy...I was pointing out that it is a business opportunity.
I agree that this is not a good situation at all. I'm just defending Smashwords. This is not their doing...and an alternative is not viable for them right now.
(Knowing how responsive Mark has been to the author community as a whole, I'm sure they are working very hard to find a solution to this mess.)