Breaking News - PayPal v. Smashwords

Here's a breaking story on MSNBC: Paypal, Visa and Mastercard have backed down from their stance on erotica e-books.

Lots of folks I admire, like Kris Rusch and Joe Konrath, believed this was just business and not censorship. But when the strike was against a genre predominantly written and consumed by women, then I believe it is censorship.

This DOES NOT mean I agree with the sale of legally banned stuff, like child pornography, which the finance providers are BOUND BY LAW not to facilitate. That's a whole 'nuther ball of wax.

But today's report relieves me to no end. It means I can continue to write and read some of the stuff I love.

And many, MANY thanks to Mark Coker for spearheading the efforts to stop this farce!

More on the PayPal/Smashwords Saga

Monday night I received an e-mail from a Faithful Reader concerning the PayPal situation. Not wanting to start a flame war, she wondered if I was being harsh blaming PayPal and whether another entity was to blame.

First of all, contrary to what others have accused me of, I don't feel it's right to repeat rumors. I will however offer an opinion on the evidence I have at the time. If I'm wrong, just show me the evidence.

Sure enough that same evening, I received another e-mail from Mark Coker. (For the record, these e-mails and the ones I mentioned on the previous post, were only sent authors with erotica titles under their account on Smashwords.)

According to Mark, he'd been in talks with the folks at PayPal. The folks at PayPal claim that the banks and credit card companies are pressuring PayPal about the same types of subject matters as mentioned before: incest/pseudo-incest, beastiality and rape.

Mark's major concerns are censorship and the fact the topics are not well-defined. Take rape for instance. The mandate handed down from PayPal (or the other U.S. financial institutions, depending on what's really going on behind the scenes) does not differentiate between rape as titillation and rape as a criminal act. Without such differentation, a great many top thriller authors would be banned as well.

Assuming PayPal folks are telling Mark the truth about who's behind this move, I second Mark's request of the following:

1) Blog, tweet, FB about this issue. Financial institutions have no business dictating terms to other businesses.

2) Contact your bank and credit company to protest such actions. Let's face it; they don't want to lose their customers.

3) Contact your U.S. representatives and senators protesting private companies efforts to censor books.

4) Contact your local news media and ask them to look into the matter.

Why am I seconding Mark's request? As my Faithful Reader pointed out in her e-mail Monday, it's too coincidental that this crap is happening during a presidential election year.

As of the time I type this, the deadline to remove material from Smashwords has been extended an indefinite period.

For additional takes on the PayPal situation, check out Sarah York's blog, Jane at Dear Author and Ryan Field's Blog..

One of my writer friends, Anna Kathryn Lanier is promoting a petition to PayPal to stop the censorship. I'd like to point out Anna DOES NOT write erotica, but she feels strongly about the censorship issue.

I don't envy Mark Coker, and I certainly don't blame him. This is business. His fledgling company needs contacts with financial providers as well as content providers. Trashing Mark is stupid and pointless and helps nothing. Please stop.

Furthermore, writing for profit is business. Plain and simple business no matter what YOU want it to be. My regular readers have heard me preach this time and time again--writing is business; treat it like one. I hope all of you take this to heart and be smart about how you deal with other companies. You can stand your ground without being an asshole.

Angry Sheep
Off her soapbox.

PayPal Has Become the Morals Police

Friday night as GK and I were watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, I received an e-mail from Mark Coker, the founder/owner of Smashwords. I can't reprint the e-mail here since I don't have Mark's permission, but needless to say, I wasn't the only one who received it. The news of the contents spread over the internet through the weekend.

Basically, PayPal has issued a warning to Smashwords that certain erotic content must be removed from their website. Otherwise PayPal will deactivate Smashwords' PayPal account. PayPal allegedly gave them only ten days to comply. The content PayPal objects to is erotica having to do with incest/pseudo-incest, bestiality and rape.

I'm of several minds on this development.

Most publishers have limits on what's acceptable in their guidelines. This is nothing new. In fact, Ellora's Cave rejects all three of the items in their submissions guidelines. So the number of publishers who would accept such types of things is limited. That leaves indie publishing.

Obviously there's a market for for this kind of erotica, which is why the indie writers put such types of erotica up on places like Amazon and Smashwords.

On the other hand, retailers don't want to anger customers. When enough customers protest something that disturbs them, retailers often bow to the pressure. A good example is when Amazon removed the 'how-to-commit-pedophilia' title last year.

What's unusual is that this is business-to-business pressure. Rarely does a company object to something that is protected free speech and fills their own coffers. This move was apparently not spawned by customer objections.

PayPal is hardly an innocent party. It has spent millions on lobbying efforts to prevent the company from being classified as a bank. It rarely follows it's own policies and procedures, and often changes those policies and procedures on a whim. So personally, I find their stance on issuing morality ultimatums to another company rather hypocritical.

It also shows a flaw in the design of Smashwords' software in that they can't readily change to a new financial provider.

More than likely another company with no PayPal connections will pick up the ball and provide those people with stories they prefer that PayPal deems objectionable.

But this situation goes to show we ARE a global community. This is not a maybe that will happen someday down the line. GLOBAL IS NOW.

While I can't put words in Mark Coker's mouth, the likely reason he decided to use PayPal is because of its global reach. All the other e-book retailers are limited by the laws in both the U.S. and overseas over sales and the types of merchandise.

Do I object to certain types of materials? Yes, but I can CHOSE NOT TO BUY the materials I object to, just like I don't buy crystal meth. Do I think what PayPal did was right? No, forcing your views on the populace rarely works. That's why Prohibition failed.

But most of all, I don't like seeing anyone bullied. For those of you who object to Amazon's tactics, take a good hard look at PayPal. This is what a real bully looks like.

The bigger problem is what else will PayPal find objectionable down the road?