* PayPal to focus only on e-books with “potentially illegal”
images
* New policy to focus on e-books with just text
* Won’t process payments for e-books containing child
pornography
* New policy to focus on individual e-books, not entire
classes
SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 (Reuters) – PayPal, the online
payment service owned by eBay Inc (EBAY.O), is backtracking on
its policy against processing sales of e-books containing themes
of rape, bestiality or incest after protests from authors and
anti-censorship activist groups.
PayPal’s new policy will focus only on e-books that contain
potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just
text, spokesman Anuj Nayar said on Tuesday. The service will
still refuse, however, to process payments for text-only e-books
containing child pornography themes.
The revised policy will also focus on individual books,
rather than entire classes of books, he added. E-book sellers
will be notified if specific books violate PayPal’s policy, and
the company is working on a process through which authors and
distributors can challenge such notifications, the spokesman
said.
“This is going to be a major victory for writers, readers
and free speech,” said Mark Coker, founder of e-book distributor
Smashwords. “They are going to build a protective moat around
legal fiction.”
PayPal warned Smashwords and some other e-book publishers
and distributors earlier this year that it would “limit” their
PayPal accounts unless they removed e-books “containing themes
of rape, incest, bestiality and underage subjects.”
PayPal’s original policy was criticized by groups, including
the Authors Guild and the National Coalition Against Censorship,
which voiced concern that banks and payment companies may be
exerting too much control over what books can be written,
published and read.
PayPal is relaxing the policy after the main credit card
companies made a distinction between extreme pornographic images
and e-books that explore such topics with only the written word.
PayPal told e-book distributors earlier this year that the
original policy was in place partly because the banks and credit
card companies it works with restrict such content.
However, Doug Michelman, global head of corporate relations
for Visa Inc (V.N), suggested that the company would not crack
down on e-books that explore such topics, according to a letter
he wrote that was posted on the blog Banned Writers. A Visa
spokesperson confirmed that the letter was real.
“The sale of a limited category of extreme imagery depicting
rape, bestiality and child pornography is or is very likely to
be unlawful in many places and would be prohibited on the Visa
system whether or not the images have formally been held to be
illegal in any particular country,” Michelman wrote. “Visa would
take no action regarding lawful material that seeks to explore
erotica in a fictional or educational manner.”
A MasterCard (MA.N) spokesman drew a similar distinction on
Tuesday, saying that the company “would not take action
regarding the use of its cards and systems for the sale of
lawful materials that seek to explore erotica content of this
nature.”
PayPal’s new policy will still prohibit the use of its
service for sale of e-books that contain child pornography, or
e-books with text and obscene images of rape, bestiality or
incest, the spokesman said.
PayPal has not shut down the accounts of any e-books
publishers involved in this debate, he added.
(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
((alistair.barr@thomsonreuters.com; +1 415 677 2544; Reuters
Messaging: Reuters Messaging:
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