If you read my post from last week, you are somewhat up-to-date on the PayPal censorship debate (hey, I’m not a friggin’ news site). Well, just now, PayPal revised its stance on their censorship to only include books containing pictures of rape, incest, bestiality… and child pornography. Not text. This WSJ article does a good job explaining it (briefly).
Apparently, PayPal received some heavy pressure to re-think their stance on the issue. As I said last week, I can understand their financial angle. However, censorship leads to less books, which is never a good thing.
Anyway, Mark Coker (founder of Smashwords), had this to say in response to this news:
“This is a bright day for indie publishing. In the old world, traditional publishers were the arbiters of literary merit. Today, thanks to the rise of indie ebooks, the world is moving toward a broader, more inclusive definition of literary merit… [and] Merit is decided by your readers. Just as it should be.”
Love it.
