[Terrence OBrien]

Not a lawyer, and definitely not a solicitor, but it sounds like it would be a hard prosecution. They would have to prove negligence.

I'd be interested in a UK opinion of whether they lost the "innocent distribution" defense as soon as the titles were publicly listed. I doubt the public good defense would do too well.

 

[Decon]

There lies the conspiracy, because as you say, W.H. Smith sell trad published erotica in store.

W.H Smith has no affiliation with self-published books, which work counter to them selling trad published books and has in truth eaten into their shop sales with low cost eBooks. While they are keen to get into the digital age, maybe they don't want their brand to be associated with self-publishing... full stop. It really was crazy to clear out all self-published books.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

What Kobo should have done:

1. Reiterate that erotica involving those below 18 is forbidden.
2. Specify that erotica revolving around incest, PI, bestiality, non/dub con etc has to be placed in the Taboo section. Advise aggregators/distros and KWL publishers that books placed outside of the category will be blocked, and may be grounds for account closure.
3. Give the partners the ability to block entire (sub)categories. If this applies to both trade and the indies complaints should be few. Publicly list which categories are blocked by which partners.
4. Advise suppliers that categories or titles may be region blocked to comply with that regions laws. (duh) Responsible corporation, blah blah blah
5. Add a Mature Materials filter. Default existing database --outside of children's books-- to being flagged. Let suppliers update, and change upload process to include flag setting. Provide coherent guidance as to what Kobo expects to have the flag on. Even better if the filter returns a response advising you to change settings for mature flagged stuff when you search the way Drive Thru does.

I'm not an MBA or anything, but this seems like it would have worked a heck of a lot better. Might even have improved their market share based on how many people Amazon has aggravated lately.

Unless Zelah's right and it's Mastercard again. In which case, a class action lawsuit for tortious interference should teach Mastercard to mind their place.

Good ideas. But they all revolve around that little flag being accurately set in a few hundred thousand books. Millions? It sounds simple, but getting that flag in the files in manner that can be trusted is a very difficult task. The responses of WHSmith and Kobo lead me to suspect they don't have it or can't trust it.

But just consider the flag. If it was to be implemented, we would have unending controversy about which books should be flagged, and which ones should not. Add to that the problem that when a supplier or retailer says he us using a flag that can be relied on he's taking on a huge responsibility.

It's not impossible, but it is a very difficult management challenge. I'd love to hear how any of them intend to do it.

 

[Harriet Schultz]

Just wondering if WH Smith will purge E.L. James or is FSOG literature?

 

[CoraBuhlert]

Just wondering if WH Smith will purge E.L. James or is FSOG literature?

On the contrary, their brick and mortar stores have Fifty Shades of Grey and similar books display tables or at least they did last year. Including one book, Gabriel's Inferno, which details a BDSM laced relationship between a college student and her professor, i.e. not all that far from the "teacher" books being banned.

 

[beccaprice]

I'm tempted to name my next fairy tale collection "Daddies and Demons" <g>

 

[Terrence OBrien]

Anyone remember the protests over American Psycho? The National Organozation Of Women (NOW) didnt want it published.

The first shock waves hit last August when female employees at Simon & Schuster, the book's original publisher, caught wind of its content and began to protest its publication.

(Two separate quotes from the same article. My quote key doesnt work.)

From L.A., Bruce plans to expand her NOW chapter's boycott to all-out Psycho warfare. ''The boycott is just one element of the protest,'' she says. ''You won't see books being burned or fireworks when the novel is published. What you will see is our attempt...to show the gatekeepers of this culture...that the women of this country will no longer tolerate gratuitous violence for the sake of profit and entertainment.''

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,313573,00.html

 

[WG McCabe]

Anyone remember the protests over American Psycho? The National Association Of Women didnt want it published.

The first shock waves hit last August when female employees at Simon & Schuster, the book's original publisher, caught wind of its content and began to protest its publication.

(Two separate quotes from the same article. My quote key doesnt work.)

From L.A., Bruce plans to expand her NOW chapter's boycott to all-out Psycho warfare. ''The boycott is just one element of the protest,'' she says. ''You won't see books being burned or fireworks when the novel is published. What you will see is our attempt...to show the gatekeepers of this culture...that the women of this country will no longer tolerate gratuitous violence for the sake of profit and entertainment.''

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,313573,00.html

I was working at a B. Dalton when that all went down. The manager asked me if we should stock it. I told her of course we should stock it. We kept having to re-order the damned thing it sol out so fast.

 

[Lummox JR]

I am still going back to the J$J case. That's because it posed a sudden threat to the company and involved pulling instances of products from a much larger set. That isn't negated by the fact that books didn't kill people.

WH Smith didn't pull a subset; they shutdown an entire distribution channel. That's insane. Kobo a least did something much more analogous. But the threat to the company was in a much different form here. This was simply bad press, which companies can take steps to deal with. J&J had to act to make sure nobody actually got poisoned. Glossing over this distinction doesn't make it go away.

I agree about customers and revenue. But I have no reason to presume taking down a dozen books and announcing the company will host Daddy while it thinks about the rest would lead to less brand damage.

The company had specific information to work with pointing to specific titles they could have taken down right away. They could have also done a narrow-net search to find a number of other titles to delist along with it as an additional measure. That part is perfectly reasonable. Obviously they wouldn't "announce" they were hosting anything objectionable; if they learned of it after having to purge something similar, they'd want to take care of that too. But look, we're in agreement these books were awful. If they dealt with an immediate problem and started casting wider and wider to root out the rest, that would be a good proactive way of dealing with things. Again you act as if taking down this specific book you keep coming back to is the only thing that matters in this process, and any collateral damage made as a result of any action they took to do so is just fine. They could have taken lots of actions that would have taken it down, that wouldn't have caused nearly so much collateral damage; based on our discussion to this point I'm sure you'd be just as happy with those outcomes.

Of course I'm looking at immediate results. That's where the immediate threat is. Looks like they have neutralized that one. Would taking down a dozen boks and announcing thoughtful consideration have done the same?

Those books were the immediate threat--again this is a threat to the company's PR, not to the public--and no other. Removing those books would definitely have undercut any tide of anger from consumers who were upset--which again was by no means all of them. But if we can stop exaggerating the level and nature of the threat and the ire of customers for a bit, I think we can at least agree that indeed, taking down just a few dozen named books would have only done part of the job. It would have been fairly sensible to go after secondary threats, any books that would have come up in related searches that were clearly a problem, so those dozen could be the vanguard of hundreds of delisted titles. It's proactive, it's sensible, and it would have sated the vast majority of those infuriated. From there they could have segued into dealing with any books that missed their first round and hammering out a better policy with the distributor.

Disagree. The legal system is not a customer and can never dismissed.

You disagree that the company has to justify its actions to its customers, shareholders, and business partners? That just doesn't fly. Or were you inferring that I meant those were the only parties who would hold WH Smith to account? For the sake of clarification, I didn't mean that list to be all-inclusive. If there is any legal culpability here, that obviously can't be ignored, but one way or another the company absolutely has to face the music with everyone else. If this was their only feasible course of action for legal reasons, they could and should have said so; it would certainly help them when it came time to explain everything to the other parties involved. I didn't see anything of the sort in their statement, however, which suggests to me that legal issues didn't force this particular outcome.

I agree customers are inconvenienced. Again, I don't know what professional means. I look at actions, not self-selected tags people wear.

I don't have the patience to humor the pretense that words don't mean things. Are we not writers? A company calling out its business partners in public for something that was no more the partner's fault than their own, and blaming all of self-publishing for those woes, is unprofessional. Simple as that.

Let's be reasonable and just disagree on the degree of overreaction WH Smith achieved. But let's also be reasonable and agree that going out of their way to blame their suppliers, by name, was just plain bad behavior no matter how justifiable their other actions were.

 

[Gone To Croatan]

I'd be interested in a UK opinion of whether they lost the "innocent distribution" defense as soon as the titles were publicly listed. I doubt the public good defense would do too well.

Unless they were obviously well beyond the pale (child porn, etc), I doubt the government could have found twelve jurors willing to convict them for selling dirty books. I rarely met anyone in the UK who thought the obscenity laws were anything other than ludicrous.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

WH Smith didn't pull a subset; they shutdown an entire distribution channel. That's insane. Kobo a least did something much more analogous. But the threat to the company was in a much different form here. This was simply bad press, which companies can take steps to deal with. J&J had to act to make sure nobody actually got poisoned. Glossing over this distinction doesn't make it go away.

I agree WHS didnt pull a subset. They couldnt identify the subset of bad products. They couldnt pull it. So they pulled the larger set. That is the same situation J&J faced. They couldnt identify the subset of bad products. They couldnt pull it. So they pulled the larger set.

I agree the distinction does not go away. It is not being glossed over. Let me say it again. Killing people with pills is not the same as selling Daddy books. However, that does not change the fact that both companies faced a threat, and both faced a problem in figuring out how to handle the unidentifiable subset of bad product instances.

The company had specific information to work with pointing to specific titles they could have taken down right away.

I agree. Media pointed out a dozen titles.

They could have also done a narrow-net search to find a number of other titles to delist along with it as an additional measure.

What does that mean?

That part is perfectly reasonable. Obviously they wouldn't "announce" they were hosting anything objectionable; if they learned of it after having to purge something similar, they'd want to take care of that too.

Why wouldnt they announce it? The media was reporting they sold that stuff. Do they deny it? No comment as bloggers and newspapers gleefully splash one title after another on their pages?

But look, we're in agreement these books were awful.

Im looking at is as a problem where a company faces a threat and has to get an unidentifiable subset of product instances off the market. My opinion on the product doesnt matter.

If they dealt with an immediate problem and started casting wider and wider to root out the rest, that would be a good proactive way of dealing with things. Again you act as if taking down this specific book you keep coming back to is the only thing that matters in this process, and any collateral damage made as a result of any action they took to do so is just fine.

No. I didnt say that.

They could have taken lots of actions that would have taken it down, that wouldn't have caused nearly so much collateral damage; based on our discussion to this point I'm sure you'd be just as happy with those outcomes.

There are lots of things they could have done. But I question if any would have been as effective. Im not happy with anything I dont know about. I measure outcomes by both effect on the problem and degree of collateral damage. What outcomes?

Those books were the immediate threat--again this is a threat to the company's PR, not to the public--and no other. Removing those books would definitely have undercut any tide of anger from consumers who were upset--which again was by no means all of them.

Removing all of the offending books from inventory would be sufficient. That would include the books publicly named and the ones not named. It appeared it was necessary to remove all books in order to get rid of the offending books. (Like J&J) The few books identified in the media do not constitute the whole problem.

But if we can stop exaggerating the level and nature of the threat and the ire of customers for a bit, I think we can at least agree that indeed, taking down just a few dozen named books would have only done part of the job.

I dont agree Im exaggerating it. I agree taking down a few dozen would be only part of the job.

It would have been fairly sensible to go after secondary threats, any books that would have come up in related searches that were clearly a problem, so those dozen could be the vanguard of hundreds of delisted titles. It's proactive, it's sensible, and it would have sated the vast majority of those infuriated.

I doubt it. The company would be taking inadequate steps in gettng rid of a few dozen while continuing to sell many more. Continued sales of the subject books would not be excused by a fig leaf of a few dozen removals.

From there they could have segued into dealing with any books that missed their first round and hammering out a better policy with the distributor.

Any books they missed? I suspect there are lots of them they missed, and they would be happily making money off them as they continued to sell and think about them. That would be an obvious problem. They would gain nothing. There would be no change in behavior other than a pledge to think about it.

You disagree that the company has to justify its actions to its customers, shareholders, and business partners?

The company does not have to justify these actions to customers. It does not have to justify anything beyond what is covered by contract to other parties. It does have to answer to stockholders. I expect they are doing that.

That just doesn't fly.

Why not?

Or were you inferring that I meant those were the only parties who would hold WH Smith to account? Thats why I asked. For the sake of clarification, I didn't mean that list to be all-inclusive.

I didnt infer anything. Too lazy. Its easier to just ask when I dont know what people mean..

If there is any legal culpability here, that obviously can't be ignored, but one way or another the company absolutely has to face the music with everyone else.

I agree. And I recognize that their actions from the time the titles were publicly announced could have an effect on legal liability. Immediately stopping sales of the subject books could put them in a different situation than continuing to sell them to avoid collateral damage to themselves while they think about Daddy..

If this was their only feasible course of action for legal reasons, they could and should have said so; it would certainly help them when it came time to explain everything to the other parties involved.

I dont know if that would have helped them legally. i still dont know enough about UK law.

I didn't see anything of the sort in their statement, however, which suggests to me that legal issues didn't force this particular outcome.

I dont see any basis for that. Again, I lack the knowledge of UK law. In the US, lawyers routinely tell individuals and companies to shut up while they negotiate with authorities on their behalf.

I don't have the patience to humor the pretense that words don't mean things. Are we not writers? A company calling out its business partners in public for something that was no more the partner's fault than their own, and blaming all of self-publishing for those woes, is unprofessional. Simple as that.

I doubt anyone involved gives a hoot if we are writers. I have no reason to think they are blaming all of self-publishing. I recognize the feed came from Kobo, and have no problem with WHS describing it. I still dont know what unprofessional means.

Let's be reasonable and just disagree on the degree of overreaction WH Smith achieved. But let's also be reasonable and agree that going out of their way to blame their suppliers, by name, was just plain bad behavior no matter how justifiable their other actions were.

First, I dont recognize an overreaction. So I dont recognize degrees of it. Second, I have no problem saying what a supplier provided.

 

[Terrence OBrien]

Unless they were obviously well beyond the pale (child porn, etc), I doubt the government could have found twelve jurors willing to convict them for selling dirty books. I rarely met anyone in the UK who thought the obscenity laws were anything other than ludicrous.

Coud be. I was asking about the safe harbor provision. And Im not nearly smart enough to know what juries would do in a case like this.

 

[portiadacosta]

Several of your books were previously published by Black Lace, weren't they? Which means that they would have been available at W.H. Smith anyway, because - to repeat it - W.H. Smith has no problem selling erotica in their brick and mortar stores.

Most of my self published stuff is longish shorts and novellas that have previously been published in anthologies, but not Black Lace ones. BL tend to hang on to rights. The rest of my self pubbed stuff is original material, with the exception of a republished Ellora's Cave novel. I was going to self publish some stuff I got rights back from Total-e-Bound... But I'm wishing I'd left them there now.

 

[Sapphire]

I will begin by saying I know nothing about the British legal system. I'm just musing here. There are two big differences between brick and mortar stores and on-line stores:
1- In a physical store a clerk sees the customer and can determine if they are underage. This is not possible on-line. Asking for age often doesn't get an honest answer.
2- In a physical store, the customer actually handles the book in question. They have a much better idea of what they are buying. Now, don't remind me there are "look inside" features and "previews" available on-line. You have all read many threads that a lot of people don't avail themselves of these features, don't do the extra clicks. Yet, I have never seen someone pull a book off a shelf in a store, carry it to check-out and purchase it, without at least opening it. I suppose an exception could be made for the person buying a specific book, but even then the natural tendency is to open it and thumb through a few pages.
With these two thoughts in mind, wouldn't an on-line book store need to take extra care that erotica not fall into the wrong hands?

 

[Guest]

There lies the conspiracy, because as you say, W.H. Smith sell trad published erotica in store.

W.H Smith has no affiliation with self-published books, which work counter to them selling trad published books and has in truth eaten into their shop sales with low cost eBooks. While they are keen to get into the digital age, maybe they don't want their brand to be associated with self-publishing... full stop. It really was crazy to clear out all self-published books.

I like my conspiracy theory better.

If WHSmith didn't want to be associated with self-publishing, they never had to accept books from Kobo to begin with. They could have done what lots of retailers still do: only accept books through the normal distribution channels.

In this case, it is what it is. WHSmith needed a scapegoat, and indies are expendable. Despite all the talk of storming the gates and marketshare, indies have no actual power in the marketplace. We are too fragmented. We have no organized structure. We have no leverage. We are treated as interchangeable commodities that are replaced. The real reason WHSmith felt they could do this is because as soon as Kobo gives them the OK, they will have just as many titles available as they did before the lockdown. Because for every indie that may decide to drop Kobo as an outlet, five more will sign up.

All ebook retailers look at indies the same. They don't need one author selling a million copies. They only need 100,000 selling ten each. And there will always be more authors.

 

[thesmallprint]

I can only admire the reserve and good manners of the author of the complaint letter quoted at the start of this thread. A much more satisfying approach was deployed some years ago by a UK customer of the cable company NTL. I reproduce his letter below. There are a few Britishisms (bog is toilet), but I think you will get the general point.

Dear Cretins:

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your four-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, telephone, and alarm monitoring. During this three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes - an activity with which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools - such as a drill-bit and his cerebrum.

Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over four weeks my modem arrived, six weeks after I had requested it - and begun to pay for it. I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35% - the hours between about 6 pm and midnight, Monday through Friday and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection.

I have made nine calls on my mobile to your no-help line and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals who are, it seems, also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman. And several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore and also another one of those crucially important testicle moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care. It's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me therefore if I continue.

I thought British Telecom was crap; that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations; and that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there?

How surprised I therefore was when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum, incompetents of the highest order. BT - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.

Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be replaced by derision and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day. May it be the last in your miserable short lives, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twits.

May you rot in Hell,

Robert Stokes

 

[Guest]

I will begin by saying I know nothing about the British legal system. I'm just musing here. There are two big differences between brick and mortar stores and on-line stores:
1- In a physical store a clerk sees the customer and can determine if they are underage. This is not possible on-line. Asking for age often doesn't get an honest answer.

There is actually a lot of psychology in the placement of products in a store. I work in contract packaging. Your mind would spin if you saw the amount of research that went into deciding how to place products on a shelf. Product placement is a soft form of restriction. The act of putting 'adult" books at adult eye level keeps most kids from looking at them. It is natural inclination to focus on what is in front of you. You see this, for example, on the cereal aisle. Children's cereals are always on the lower shelves and child's eye level. Healthy cereals tend to be on the top shelves at adult eye level.

Even watch people browsing a magazine rack. Adult themed magazines tend to be on the very top shelves. Pop culture and teen magazines on the middle shelves. Magazines for family and kids on the lower shelves. And in general, each group gravitates toward those shelves.

In bookstores, erotica tends to be in a strategically positioned location in the store. Not a dark back corner per se, but generally in an area surrounded by books most kids don't read. Different age groups move through stores differently. Once you know that, you can use this soft form of segregation to restrict access without actually restricting access. It is science as much as it is art.

But online retail hasn't figured out how to do this yet. If you go up to a clerk at a bookstore and ask "where can find books on fathers and daughters?" the clerk is going to direct you to the family section of the bookstore. Retail search engines just search for words with no context. So plug "fathers and daughters" into a sloppy search engine and...well...we get the problem we have now.

 

[Gertie Kindle]

I can only admire the reserve and good manners of the author of the complaint letter quoted at the start of this thread. A much more satisfying approach was deployed some years ago by a UK customer of the cable company NTL. I reproduce his letter below. There are a few Britishisms (bog is toilet), but I think you will get the general point.

The cat poop was a nice touch.

 

[Leanne King]

In bookstores, erotica tends to be in a strategically positioned location in the store. Not a dark back corner per se, but generally in an area surrounded by books most kids don't read. Different age groups move through stores differently. Once you know that, you can use this soft form of segregation to restrict access without actually restricting access. It is science as much as it is art.

Keeping filth away from Disney princesses? Nah....

[/URL]

Looks like some of these stores could do with hiring a certain Sith.

 

[71089]

Keeping filth away from Disney princesses? Nah....

[/URL]

Looks like some of these stores could do with hiring a certain Sith.

I like that strategically placed 'caution - wet floor'. Puts a kind of weird thoughts in my head as to why that floor is wet right in front of those books ...