[Sarma]

There are no limits. Who is limiting your artistic expression and exploration?

You seem to take a very black or white stance on this issue and enjoy playing the devil's advocate. I'm loving it! (yes, seriously)

I'm not sure "who" is limiting my artistic expression, because I'm not sure it's happened yet. I just said I don't want it to happen, not that I have a legal right for it not to happen. I don't want to feel limited when I'm being creative, and permanent censorship of full length novels that explore dark themes, including sexual themes, will be on my mind, limiting my expression. Please spare me a lecture about how Amazon is not contractually obligated to care about my feelings. I understand that.

I don't write so that words can exist on a piece of paper. I write so that people can hear me. Amazon is the best way to reach the biggest audience. If they are permanently heavy handed with dark themes in a full length story, it is going to affect how I write.

Disagree. Amazon in no way limits an authors exploration or expression. What it is doing is refraining from having a commercial relationship with the author. Those are two very different things and the distinction is vital. This would be totally different if Amazon was actually stopping an author from exploring or expressing. It is not doing that.

No, they are not coming up with a gestapo team to break into my house and steal my computer or threatening me with physical violence. Apparently that's all that matters to you.

Part of expression, for me, is being heard. When all of our outlets to be effectively heard become privatized, legally, we don't lose our rights to free speech. But practically speaking, we do.

Nobody is slapping an author because they dont choose to do business with the author. In an earlier post I asked if Amazon owes independent authors anything. The question was characterized as odd, but this is the reason I asked it.

Legally, no. And it's great that you brought it up. I too roll my eyes every time someone screams "free speech" when they want to rant about politics on a forum and get banned, or show up to work nude or wearing an obscene T-shirt.

Practically, ethically, yes, Amazon does owe independent authors. The ability to discreetly read erotic literature is one of the reasons customers started buying their Kindles. It may have even been the biggest factor. Self-publishers are the people who created this literature and therefore, possibly the success of the Kindle.

I think the real question is, what does Amazon owe its customers? I'm sure more than a few people bought Kindles to read the type of literature they are banning. Taking away their main selling point after they take the consumer's money is a little like bait and switch advertising.

It's no coincidence that Amazon has all the rights here and the artists and consumers have none. I think we as a society, definitely in the USA, are at a point where some of these constitutional freedoms need to extend to the private sector. Practically, when everything is privatized, these freedoms no longer exist.

Honestly, a 6K story where someone who is a pseudo adult (virgin highschool senior) gets pseudo-raped by their pseudo-father is walking a fine legal line. And I would say that most people would consider this "pornography" something that is expressly prohibited in Amazon's content guidelines.

If anyone has a full length novel that has been banned, they need to be screaming this fact all over the Internet right now. We aren't going to get a lot of sympathy from Amazon's customer base for our short pornographic stories. But if they are permanently censoring well developed storylines of erotic romances, the uproar should protect us where the law doesn't.

 

[daringnovelist]

You're still confusing the act, with writing fiction about the act. Yes, incest is illegal in some places, but writing fiction about incest is not. Just like murder is illegal and writing fiction about murder is not.

And there is no 'promoting' going on. Books about serial killers with graphic violence do not 'promote' killing. And books about incest - whether it's step or actual - with graphic sex do not promote incest.

Sigh. (Note again, I am not a lawyer.)

You're mixing up the difference between depiction and pornographic depiction. Depiction is not illegal.

These laws aren't against depicting the act. They're against promoting the act. That's the word you'll see in many of the laws, and it's the word very often used in Terms of Service language. (And yes, even fictional depiction of sex with children is considered illegal in some places.)

They use that word to define the difference between a book about surviving child sexual abuse and pornographic materials which depict it as something pleasurable.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just explaining what is going on in the minds of those who are going after some things while letting others stand. (Which is what was asked -- I was answering a question.)

You've GOT to understand what's going on with the other side before you can effectively change something.

Camille

 

[justagirl]

Disagree. Amazon in no way limits an authors exploration or expression.

Nobody is slapping an author because they dont choose to do business with the author. In an earlier post I asked if Amazon owes independent authors anything. The question was characterized as odd, but this is the reason I asked it.

Why are these things mutually exclusive? I don't see it that way.

Technically, legally, no - Amazon doesn't owe it's authors anything more than payment for what is already been sold.

But that doesn't mean they aren't going around slapping faces.

I think of it this way - there's a big classroom full of students, and a company wants to hand out scholarships. The company is banking on the talents of these students working for them, and the students want to better themselves. The company hands out scholarships to every kid in the room - except one. That one, they've heard a few rumors about. That one has the weirdo ideas.

That one realizes that the company doesn't have to give scholarships to anyone, but when she's looking around and sees all of her classmates being able to advance themselves and their ideas, she feels like the company slapped her in the face just for being from the wrong side of the tracks - and without a scholarship, she knows that she's not going to be able to go to college.

 

[swolf]

Sigh. (Note again, I am not a lawyer.)

No, you're not a lawyer. You're just confused.

You're mixing up the difference between depiction and pornographic depiction. Depiction is not illegal.

Neither is fictional pornographic depiction. If you think it's illegal, then please point out the law that makes it so.

These laws aren't against depicting the act. They're against promoting the act.

The only laws against promotion of porn has to do with advertising it. There is no 'promotion of the act' in pornography.

That's the word you'll see in many of the laws

Show me the laws.

(And yes, even fictional depiction of sex with children is considered illegal in some places.)

Oh, now we're down to 'some places'? You could say that about anything. A woman buying a cucumber is illegal in some countries. That statement is meaningless.

They use that word to define the difference between a book about surviving child sexual abuse and pornographic materials which depict it as something pleasurable.

There have been instances of prosecutors trying to apply laws like this, but every time they get in front of the Supreme Court, they're overturned.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just explaining what is going on in the minds of those who are going after some things while letting others stand. (Which is what was asked -- I was answering a question.)

No, you're making stuff up.

You've GOT to understand what's going on with the other side before you can effectively change something.

I don't have to change any laws against written pornography, because SCOTUS does that for us.

in Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition, SCOTUS determined:

By prohibiting child pornography that does not depict an actual child, the statute goes beyond New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), which distinguished child pornography from other sexually explicit speech because of the State's interest in protecting the children exploited by the production process.

...

Congress may pass valid laws to protect children from abuse, and it has. E.g., 18 U.S.C. § 2241 2251. The prospect of crime, however, by itself does not justify laws suppressing protected speech. See Kingsley Int'l Pictures Corp. v. Regents of Univ. of N. Y., 360 U.S. 684, 689 (1959) ("Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment of the rights of free speech") (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). It is also well established that speech may not be prohibited because it concerns subjects offending our sensibilities. See FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 745 (197 ("[T]he fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it"); see also Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 874 (1997) ("In evaluating the free speech rights of adults, we have made it perfectly clear that '(s)exual expression which is indecent but not obscene is protected by the First Amendment' ") (quoting Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126 (1989); Carey v. Population Services Int'l, 431 U.S. 678, 701 (1977) ("[T]he fact that protected speech may be offensive to some does not justify its suppression").

...

As a general principle, the First Amendment bars the government from dictating what we see or read or speak or hear. The freedom of speech has its limits; it does not embrace certain categories of speech, including defamation, incitement, obscenity, and pornography produced with real children.

...

In contrast to the speech in Ferber, speech that itself is the record of sexual abuse, the CPPA prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production. Virtual child pornography is not "intrinsically related" to the sexual abuse of children, as were the materials in Ferber. 458 U.S., at 759. While the Government asserts that the images can lead to actual instances of child abuse, see infra, at 13-16, the causal link is contingent and indirect. The harm does not necessarily follow from the speech, but depends upon some unquantified potential for subsequent criminal acts.

...

The Government submits further that virtual child pornography whets the appetites of pedophiles and encourages them to engage in illegal conduct. This rationale cannot sustain the provision in question. The mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it. The government "cannot constitutionally premise legislation on the desirability of controlling a person's private thoughts." Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 566 (1969). First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.

To preserve these freedoms, and to protect speech for its own sake, the Court's First Amendment cases draw vital distinctions between words and deeds, between ideas and conduct. See Kingsley Int'l Pictures Corp., 360 U.S., at 689; see also Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 529 (2001) ("The normal method of deterring unlawful conduct is to impose an appropriate punishment on the person who engages in it"). The government may not prohibit speech because it increases the chance an unlawful act will be committed "at some indefinite future time." Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105, 108 (1973) (per curiam). The government may suppress speech for advocating the use of force or a violation of law only if "such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (per curiam). There is here no attempt, incitement, solicitation, or conspiracy. The Government has shown no more than a remote connection between speech that might encourage thoughts or impulses and any resulting child abuse. Without a significantly stronger, more direct connection, the Government may not prohibit speech on the ground that it may encourage pedophiles to engage in illegal conduct.

Read that closely, especially the bolded parts. There is no 'promotion' in porn.

Or as SCOTUS puts it, "The mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it."

 

[Ann in Arlington]

O.K. I totally think this thread is way past it's 'sell by date'. . . . and now there's picking apart posts point by point which is usually the sign that it's jumped the shark.  So I'm locking it.

We'll discuss amongst ourselves as to whether the locking should be permanent this time.