The last few months have been filled with censorship battles between PayPal, the online payment service and Smashwords, the indie author publisher, and other online book publishers and distributors. PayPal, which many consumers use to purchase books gave those publishers days to remove erotic titles from the their sites or they risk having PayPal denying payments.
PayPal stated in February that it would “censor content that includes rape, bestiality and incest.” Smashwords had yanked over 1000 eTitles before an agreement was reached.
With a tremendous backlash from authors, the National Coalition Against Censorhip, the American Booksellers Foundations for Free Expression, and over thirty other groups,PayPal is withdrawing it’s censorship policy.
In a statement from Smashwords founder Mark Coker: “They (PayPal) will soon announce revised content policies that I expect will please the Smashwords community. Effective immediately, we are returning our Terms of Service back to its pre-February 24 state. Beyond that, our friends at PayPal have asked me to hold off sharing additional details until they’ve had a chance to finalize their new policies. Thank you for your patience and support during this crazy last few weeks.”
