Amazon Censorship Expands

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I know, I was referring to the carrying of books with Witchcraft! for kids!

I'm outraged, they should be banned!

Nah, if you want to be a bona fide despot, you should burn them ... burn them at the stake.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

So any writer whose ebook is burned by Amazon can't simply sell it somewhere else instead, like people keep claiming.

IT'S NOT A RIGHT TO HAVE A DISTRIBUTOR CARRY YOUR WORK!!!!

and not every author or publisher needs to make their work e-available

[nguirado]

I don't want to assume, so I'll ask.

Considering that the government isn't banning this particular book and that you're free to purchase it on other sites, what does it matter to you if Amazon carries it or not? Do you believe that stores that deal in digital content have an obligation to carry everything? What do you base this on?

Does it have to do with the title? Do you think that if they ban these books, people won't be exposed to its ideas and you think they should? Is it anger at the groups who you think want it banned?

Or, do you think this will lead to them banning things you do like, and having to go somewhere else?

[carld]

Personally, I'm against unfair corporate and government practices based on race, religion, sexual orientation and so on. Something doesn't have to matter to me on a personal level for it to be important. I don't personally care whether Amazon carries books on Buddhism or Islam, but banning them while leaving Christian and Jewish titles alone would certainly get my attention.

Also, as far as I know, the title in question was never released as an ebook, not that that matters, but I thought I'd mention it.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

IT'S NOT A RIGHT TO HAVE A DISTRIBUTOR CARRY YOUR WORK!!!!

and not every author or publisher needs to make their work e-available

People pretending they can just sell it somewhere else instead is one of the excuses that has been used several times as to why it can't be considered censorship.

[kindlekitten]

that's the problem for the author. and it appears there are other places to sell it, someone mentioned a house that specializes in erotica earlier

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by nguirado

I don't want to assume, so I'll ask.

Considering that the government isn't banning this particular book and that you're free to purchase it on other sites, what does it matter to you if Amazon carries it or not? Do you believe that stores that deal in digital content have an obligation to carry everything? What do you base this on?

Based on them carrying those titles for several years without any complaints at all and then deciding to burn them out of fear of a backlash. In the 80s, UK citizens had to be protected from the evils of Italian horror films. Once all the Italian horror films were removed from the UK, do you think that was an end to it? Would you be surprised to find out they started removing parts of PG rated American and British films too?

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by ebookrights1

When having morals becomes a bad thing, and the use of the word "God" more offensive than the rights of child molestors and rapists, it is a sign that the inmates are running the asylum.

But people promoting sexual violence have a right to force their views upon the public. How dare any business owner not peddle their screeds?

Power to the people! But only (evidently) the people who wish to promote rape and pedophelia. Those who don't want to sell that crud are clearly evil Nazis. Didn't you get the memo?

[carld]

Oh good Lord, this book isn't about promoting rape. It's a novel about a rapist, it no more promotes rape than American Psycho promotes murder or the Saw movies promote insane serial killers.

PS: And I guess we should ban this book for promoting rape, and this one, and this one, and this one for having a title that's much too provocative.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by CommonReader

Perhaps not a "right" that is enforceable in court but a reasonable expectation by both the customers and the authors. We are only talking about a file that is stored on a server for download, not about a physical book that requires storing space in a warehouse, after all.
However, if this isn't feasible then I expect a company of that size to be predictable and reliable in handling the issue of discontinuing books. I do not consider it as professional conduct to arbitrarily fob off one author with a completely meaningless claim that his work violates the content guidelines. We should keep in mind that apart from removing his book they also threatened to terminate his account if he submitted any more content that's considered to violate their guidelines. Yet their guidelines are so vague that they deserve the term "risible". This is what they say with regard to offensive content:

"What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect."

They might just as well tell people that they will do what they damn well please. Hardly a sound foundation for a business relationship.

I don't see that authors or customers have *any* reasonable expectation that Amazon will keep publishing a particular self-published books. This is not in their terms of service.

And, again, I don't see how this hurts authors, customer, or *anyone* more than a tradpublisher not publishing the book in the first place.

Tradpubs: we will read your book and if it meets our standards (which we alone decide), we'll publish it.
Amazon: we will publish your book, and if we later determine it doesn't meet our standards (which we alone decide), we will stop publishing it.

Authors and customers are better off with Amazon's system.

[RoboRay]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

People pretending they can just sell it somewhere else instead is one of the excuses that has been used several times as to why it can't be considered censorship.

They're not pretending.

[ebookrights1]

Has anyone considered the strong possibility that the ebook in question was pulled because it was illiterate garbage?

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by ebookrights1

Has anyone considered the strong possibility that the ebook in question was pulled because it was illiterate garbage?

So you've read it? (I'm asking this as a serious question, I'm not being sarcastic.)

[ebookrights1]

No, I haven't.

Just wondering if anyone had considered that possibility.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by ebookrights1

No, I haven't.

Just wondering if anyone had considered that possibility.

The writing quality itself is no better and no worse than a multitude of books widely available. It's not a genre I normally read (or at least not that niche of the genre), but I think I may be the only person on this thread to actually go download the free samples at B&N. The author (at least in these two cases) uses a first-person narrative and does a pretty good job at getting across the character's voice and personality. So no, I cannot truly believe that was the reason.

I'm not really heavily involved in this debate, but for perspective, my position is that Amazon has a right to do what they choose, and their customers also have a right to be concerned about their actions. I really can see it from all sides in terms of business practices. My issue here has been that some people are labeling it with all sorts of labels when they haven't actually read it, and it's getting mixed up in the debate about "the other book" in "the other thread". That's why I asked the question of you - I wasn't sure where you were going with that and I didn't want to assume either way before commenting.

I do try to be a diplomat, though I sometimes fail miserably.