Unfortunately, they're not "walling off our titles"
but trying to get us to redress or censor what they've already accepted
and sold, often, for years; at Kindle and at the former Mobipocket site,
and the old Amazon setups of Amazon Shorts and when it used to sell
other ebook types.
As if they've stopped selling Jenna Jameson or all the visual "porn".
Erotica and writing "porn" are shocking, but you can stop reading,
people, after all. Or firewall or set up disclaimer entries to the materials like most hardcore erotic sites do anyway.
Not twist authors arms to "redress," literally, repackage titles, descriptions, and covers from materials they've accepted under contract and from which they take about 50% of income. _NS
By Matthew Wall and Dave Lee
BBC Technology News
Retailer
Amazon has removed several abuse-themed e-books from its Kindle Store
after a report highlighted titles depicting rape, incest and bestiality.
Titles such as Taking My Drunk Daughter had been on sale.
Amazon and Barnes & Noble both say they are removing
books found by technology news site The Kernel, but many others still
remain, the BBC has found.
WHSmith and Kobo, which feature titles with similar themes, are yet to respond to requests for comment.
The BBC found that on Amazon's store, the search function
automatically suggested explicit topics to users typing seemingly
innocuous keywords - without age verification taking place.
Amazon has not responded to the BBC's request for comment on
the issue, except to confirm that the specific books listed by The
Kernel had been removed.
Barnes & Noble said in a statement the titles were "in
violation" of its policy on content offered in the NOOK Bookstore and
were in the process of being removed.
"When there are violations to the content policy that are
brought to our attention, either through our internal process or from a
customer or external source, we have a rapid response team in place to
appropriately categorize or remove the content in accordance with our
policy," it said.
Justice Minister Damian Green told the BBC "the government
shares the public's concerns about the availability of harmful
material."
Self-published
The titles can be found in the self-published section of the
retailers' sites - an area where authors can offer their own work. The
companies take a percentage of the sales made through their stores.
One lawyer told the BBC that the retailers could find
themselves guilty of a criminal offence for allowing such content to be
found without protection mechanisms.
"The directors of Amazon have a very difficult question to
answer: why are they making profits from pornography which, on the face
of it, seems to be criminal?" said Mark Stephens, former chairman of the
Internet Watch Foundation, a body responsible for monitoring criminal
content online.
However, many of the authors have taken measures to stay
within the law, adding disclaimers to their descriptions, such as saying
characters were "over 18" or "step-daughters".
On Amazon, guidelines for self-publishing state: "We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts."
It adds: "What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect."
The other retailers give similar guidance.
In July, Prime Minister David Cameron said the government
intended to make it illegal in England and Wales to possess online
pornography depicting rape.
But it is unclear whether the written word - currently
governed by the Obscene Publications Act (OPA) - will come under the
proposed legislation.
Under the OPA, publishers have a duty to protect the public
from accidentally encountering material that could outrage public
decency, said Mr Stephens.
A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers told
the BBC: "Rape is a serious criminal offence which has a physical,
emotional and psychological impact on victims. It's very unpleasant and
distasteful to use such a harrowing experience as the basis for
entertainment and enjoyment.
"Investigating offences of rape is a particularly complex process because it often rests on the issue of consent."
'Censorship'
John Carr, secretary to the Children's Charities' Coalition on
Internet Safety, said parents would be "shocked" at what content was
discoverable.
"At the very least there should be a certain class of
material that is adult, which ought not to be universally accessible,"
he told the BBC.
However, others felt that Amazon's removal of some titles amounted to censorship.
"We outlaw snuff films, child porn and, increasingly, revenge
porn, because actual people are harmed during their production," wrote
PJ Vogt on OnTheMedia.org.
"Erotic fiction concerns fake characters who don't exist in real life."
Mr Carr stressed that he did not condone censorship, but that the content needed to be walled off.
"If this was a Soho sex shop, I wouldn't take the same view. I am concerned that this is next to things kids could search for."
