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[Kagari]

http://bit.ly/mlwFGx

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...me-explicit-yaoi-manga-from-kindle-store.html

Amazon has removed several yaoi manga from its Kindle Store and refused to allow others to be offered for Kindle, although the bookseller continues to sell the same manga in print and to offer more explicit erotic books in both formats. Yaoi manga, also known as boys-love or BL, is a popular niche genre in manga that features love stories between two males and can range from softly romantic to sexually explicit.
The manga publisher Digital Manga Publishing announced on its blog Tuesday that two of its books had been removed from the Kindle Store and two more were rejected, and the website The Yaoi Review also reported that several Yaoi Press manga and novels had been removed. At least one non-yaoi erotic graphic novel has also been removed from the Kindle Store this week. Amazon representatives contacted by PW did not answer e-mails or phone calls requesting more information.

The three DMP manga that were removed or barred from the Kindle Store are available digitally on DMP's eManga website and on Barnes & Noble's Nook. Indeed, Lui said that DMP makes almost as much revenue from Nook sales as from Kindle, even though the Nook pays publishers a smaller percentage of the sale price and is not available worldwide. DMP is about to launch a major digital manga initiative, the Digital Manga Guild, which will involve digital publication of over 500 volumes of manga, the first few hundred of which, Lui said, would be yaoi.

Fred Lui, v-p of production at DMP, said that Amazon had not given him any rationale for the rejections and removals.

"I asked them why, and they said take a look at their content policy and directed me to what I had read a couple times before," he said. Lui said that he is not aware of any recent changes in the policy, and that DMP has been putting books rated for ages16+ and 18+ on the Kindle for the past few years with no problem. Digital does not publish any stories involving characters under 18, he added.

The two older manga, Weekend Lovers and King of Debt, had been available on Kindle since 2009, but Lui had recently updated the digital files, which may have caused them to be flagged, he said. Those books are from their 801 imprint, which includes their most explicit books.

Amazon also refused to carry two new books submitted to the store, the novel The Selfish Demon King and the manga anthology The Color of Love. Both are from Digital's June imprint, which features less explicit, more romantic stories.

"I was led to believe that maybe they had a new guy there and he was just overzealous, or what, I can't say, but it kind of seemed that they were kind of looking closer at our titles and trying to see if it complies with their explicit content restrictions," Lui said.

Kindle's publicly posted guidelines simply ban "Pornography and hardcore material which depicts graphic sexual acts" and "offensive material," which is defined as "probably about what you would expect."

Nonetheless, "Erotica" is the second-largest sub-category in Kindle's fiction department, with 26,149 titles available. The Kindle Store also includes a wide selection of photographic erotica, with titles like No Holes Barred and 18 Today! Indeed, Amazon continues to carry yaoi manga from DMP and other publishers in its Kindle Store, so it is unclear why these particular titles were singled out.

"I did try to publish a couple of new books and one didn't pass," Lui said. "I was quite surprised, and I told them, 'You are selling the print edition of the book. How is this any different?' and they just took a stubborn stand to it and said they are going to hold on their decision, and they didn't give any real solid reasoning for it."

Lui said that he had noticed that a number of non-yaoi adult manga from other publishers that had been added in recent months has disappeared in the past few weeks. One graphic novel, Christmas Creampie, which was pointed out as an example of explicit content remaining in the Kindle Store yesterday, is no longer there today.

News of the removals caused a storm of protest on Twitter, with some users reviving the #amazonfail hashtag that was used two years ago when Amazon removed a number of LGBT-themed books from its sales rankings. Those mass deletions turned out to be due to a glitch in the classification algorithm, while the current removals appear to be deliberate and selective. The Yaoi Review is encouraging readers to take their complaints directly to Amazon.

 

[Qwomo]

And nothing of value was lost that day.

 

[Aquavelvaman]

This is BULLSHIT

 

[Sai-kun]

Where will I get my delicious yaoi now??

 

[ChocolateCupcakes]

So they have an erotica section but they don't want to sell erotica? Not really fair.

Oh well.

 

[Enco]

And nothing of value was lost that day.

.

Spoiler

Sucks for those into that stuff and own a Kindle

 

[survivor]

So they offer it in print format but removed it from the Kindle store? Hooray for the digital future.

 

[Derwind]

Those bastards!!!

 

[Hot Coldman]

Isn't this just robots and nurses and shit?

 

[Lucario]

pffthahahaha I remember buying this stuff as a 13 year old at bookstores who had no idea it was 18+ only, they kinda hide the fact that it's porn

Shame amazon's removing it. =\

 

[El Sloth]

The Yaoi Review sounds strangely prestigious.

 

[Stabby McSter]

Isn't this just robots and nurses and shit?

Male robots and male nurses and male shit!

 

[Hot Coldman]

Male robots and male nurses and male shit!

OK, maybe that reference was too obscure for OT :lol

 

[meltingparappa]

Kindle's publicly posted guidelines simply ban "Pornography and hardcore material which depicts graphic sexual acts" and "offensive material," which is defined as "probably about what you would expect."

I suppose with a policy like that, they are within their rights to selectively have an erotica section but choose titles to ban titles that are "too" erotic. The fact that it's trashy manga versus trashy romance novels is probably a very thin line to begin with. The non-erotic yaoi manga seems like it was just caught up in the shuffle, unfortunately for the publisher.

I wonder if this crackdown is presently exclusively targeted at yaoi manga or all erotic manga in particular. Even further down that line of thought, I wonder if it's an issue of softcore "breasts and censored genitals ok", but the penile-nature of yaoi manga is what is causing the wraith.

Incredibly sad, prudish news for what you'd hope to one day be the widest selection of titles.

At least this is a good thing for my "Moe on the Go-e" device I sell out of my unmarked white van.

 

[Coloress_Kafka]

Christmas Creampie....REALLY? LOL

Anyways WTH are there any indie ebook stores that sell yaoi managa as an ePub or some other ebook format??

 

[Slayven]

I can't stop laughing at "Christmas Creampie"

 

[Foxix Von]

 

[meltingparappa]

Also "King of Debt" is the greatest title anyone has ever conceived for an erotic piece of literature.

Act 1: Getting into debt
Act 2: Getting out of debt
Act 3: Having someone indebted to you

...hot.

 

[arnoldocastillo2003]

One question for the kindle owners, isn´t there any way to put the manga in PDF, CBR, CBZ, etc to the kindle like with the IPAD with Comic Zeal?

 

[nVidiot_Whore]

I suppose with a policy like that, they are within their rights

They are within their rights to sell or not sell whatever the hell they want.

lol

Aren't many of the characters in Yaoi suspiciously aged?

Seems like that would have more to do with it than it being homosexual.

 

[firehawk12]

You just heard the muffled screams of a few hundred nerdy straight girls as their hopes were extinguished.

Or something.

 

[Fireye]

One question for the kindle owners, isn´t there any way to put the manga in PDF, CBR, CBZ, etc to the kindle like with the IPAD with Comic Zeal?

I believe that the kindle natively supports CBZ's. However, the better idea is to use Mangle to convert stuff to the proper size:
http://foosoft.net/mangle/

 

[AColdDay]

They have digital manga?

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

One question for the kindle owners, isn´t there any way to put the manga in PDF, CBR, CBZ, etc to the kindle like with the IPAD with Comic Zeal?

You can do PDFs but pretty sure it doesn't understand CBR or CBZ file types but you just have to convert most things to their format.

Edit: It apparently supports CBZ natively. I never knew that.

 

[Fireye]

You can do PDFs but pretty sure it doesn't understand CBR or CBZ file types but you just have to convert most things to their format.

Kindle natively supports the .CBZ file format, which is really just a zip file of images. It'll read JPG, GIF, PNG, and probably some others. The main issue with using a CBZ, is that you're not guaranteed to get the pages in the proper order, hence my earlier suggestion to use Mangle.

You can also drop folders of images into a folder named "pictures" in the root of the kindle drive. You'll be presented with a "Book" that's named after the folder you created, and it'll read the images like pages.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Kindle natively supports the .CBZ file format, which is really just a zip file of images. It'll read JPG, GIF, PNG, and probably some others. The main issue with using a CBZ, is that you're not guaranteed to get the pages in the proper order, hence my earlier suggestion to use Mangle.

You can also drop folders of images into a folder named "pictures" in the root of the kindle drive. You'll be presented with a "Book" that's named after the folder you created, and it'll read the images like pages.

Does it just do the images alphabetically in the folder then?

 

[From The Dust]

I do not support the removal of erotic media. FREE THE PORN!

 

[GABDEG]

GOD DAMN IT.

 

[neojubei]

So Amazon is censoring kindle. hmm

 

[meltingparappa]

Will manga porn be the equivalent to non-erotic anime in the 90's? Will fan-distributed translations become so commonplace that it creates but then crashes its own market?

...as if this hasn't probably already happened. I can only think of how this effects the publisher, who is probably already operating on razor thin margins as is.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

Damn, now you can't get yaoi manga on the internet anymore.

 

[spiderman123]

what's yaoi?!

edit: nvm

 

[shintoki]

I didn't know there were so many Yaoi fans here.

 

[Cyrillus]

Also "King of Debt" is the greatest title anyone has ever conceived for an erotic piece of literature.

Act 1: Getting into debt
Act 2: Getting out of debt
Act 3: Having someone indebted to you

...hot.

Keep your gross tentacle porn out of my yaoi!

 

[Einbroch]

I didn't know there were so many Yaoi fans here.

I'd reckon half of the "outrage" here is sarcasm.

NO DAMMIT NOT MY YAOI! FFFFFUUUUUUUUUU.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

what's yaoi?!

edit: nvm

bahahahaha

 

[From The Dust]

I'd reckon half of the "outrage" here is sarcasm.

NO DAMMIT NOT MY YAOI! FFFFFUUUUUUUUUU.

Not mine. Anyone who tries to touch my (or my friends' in this case) is gonna catch heat. You don't fuck with another person's porn. Unless it's of the illegal nature of course

 

[meltingparappa]

I didn't know there were so many Yaoi fans here.

Think of it in terms of Steam having a really hardcore bullet hell shooter, then pulling the bullet hell shooter and implying it will never have them ever again.

You'd say "well, no big loss to me, only a few people care about those", but you would hope that the largest digital distributor would support giving its customer as many options as reasonable, especially if the raw number of places to legally purchase and support games starts drying up at the rate of book sellers have.

And add a tiny bit of salt to your bullet hell wounds if the reason may be some sort of debatable morality issue that Steam users may be so sensitive that they don't want to look at or even acknowledge that bullet hell shooters exist.

 

[LM4sure]

They can't do this!! IT's not fair! Freedom of speech!!!! ARGH!!!

 

[Parallax Scroll]

Think of it in terms of Steam having a really hardcore bullet hell shooter, then pulling the bullet hell shooter and implying it will never have them ever again.

You'd say "well, no big loss to me, only a few people care about those", but you would hope that the largest digital distributor would support giving its customer as many options as reasonable, especially if the raw number of places to legally purchase and support games starts drying up at the rate of book sellers have.

And add a tiny bit of salt to your bullet hell wounds if the reason may be some sort of debatable morality issue that Steam users may be so sensitive that they don't want to look at or even acknowledge that bullet hell shooters exist.

Except instead of bullets it's dicks.

 

[El Sloth]

^Dick hell?

You just heard the muffled screams of a few hundred nerdy straight girls as their hopes were extinguished.

Or something.

More like shrill shriek of rebellious anger. Fan girls are scary, man. Much more so than dudes past their prime cuddling with anime pillows in public. They'll cut you over their bishies or whatever the fuck.

 

[mollipen]

Will manga porn be the equivalent to non-erotic anime in the 90's? Will fan-distributed translations become so commonplace that it creates but then crashes its own market?

...as if this hasn't probably already happened. I can only think of how this effects the publisher, who is probably already operating on razor thin margins as is.

...will? I can tell you've done very little looking around in terms of the fan translation market for manga. Part of me would almost say it's bigger than the efforts done on the anime side.

Digital manga is still just a gigantically huge mess. It's another industry where all of the feet-dragging and over-complication by publishers makes the legally questionable efforts out there more and more attractive.

 

[meltingparappa]

Except instead of bullets it's dicks.

or BOTH

Alternately, I don't have a kindle but never would have assumed they'd have an erotic section.

It's just too bad because of the double standard of having an erotic section that can't handle softcore yaoi, or between this and Apple's app-store, carrying only PG-13 content seems all the more ludicrous when these devices are connected to the internet which inherently is filled to the brim with enough super smut to peel your grandmother's wallpaper.

So like I said, I feel bad for a publisher who is trying to legally find a profitable way to distribute something (it doesn't matter what it is) in a market known for being impenetrable due to fan-translations or whatever, and getting stone-walled from what I would consider to be an old-fashioned policy.

Amazon can of course do whatever it feels like, especially if carrying this material somehow has a hidden financial cost to it, but they lose a few 'cool points' in the process.

 

[Haly]

And I just bought my Kindle.

Guess I'll ask for a refund.

Outrageous.

 

[tokkun]

Not mine. Anyone who tries to touch my (or my friends' in this case) is gonna catch heat. You don't fuck with another person's porn. Unless it's of the illegal nature of course

Amazon is not "touching your porn"...they are refusing to sell certain titles from one of their storefronts in accordance with their existing policy. If there is any controversy here, it would be on whether there is a double standard for straight vs gay material, and I'm not sure I'm convinced of that from the evidence in the OP.

 

[mollipen]

Amazon is not "touching your porn"...they are refusing to sell certain titles from one of their storefronts in accordance with their existing policy. If there is any controversy here, it would be on whether there is a double standard for straight vs gay material, and I'm not sure I'm convinced of that from the evidence in the OP.

The problem with the "policy" ideas is then why was some of this stuff allowed in the first place? If you're going to say "no, it's policy", then do that from the start. You can't argue that you have a policy that sometimes is followed and sometimes is not.

That's one of the major issues with all of these new digital efforts: absolutely no consistency in what content is allowed. It's ridiculous, and stupid to this third-parties should be expected to submit content under those conditions.

Have an adult section, and let it be an adult section. Blocking content that is clearly illegal or questionably so? Absolutely. Otherwise, keep moral opinion out of the equation.

 

[Lionheart1337]

And nothing of value was lost that day.

First reply always gets it

 

[tokkun]

The problem with the "policy" ideas is then why was some of this stuff allowed in the first place? If you're going to say "no, it's policy", then do that from the start. You can't argue that you have a policy that sometimes is followed and sometimes is not.

We have partially-enforced policies everywhere in life. Take speed limits, for example. Maybe Amazon wishes to completely enforce the policy but has not devoted the money and resources to police everything.

 

[Lionel Mandrake]

 

[mollipen]

We have partially-enforced policies everywhere in life. Take speed limits, for example. Maybe Amazon wishes to completely enforce the policy but has not devoted the money and resources to police everything.

Completely different situation. This would be more akin to the government saying, "We're only going to let certain cars on the road, and we're going to kind of give you an idea of cars we will or won't allow, but totally at random we might decide that that car you purchased and have been driving for a year now we're not going to allow anymore."

Amazon is a retailer; they create almost none of their own product, and thus rely on countless other companies to supply them with product to be sold via their services. To not be very clear to those partners as to what is or is not cleared for being sold by Amazon is nothing short of ridiculous. It isn't just about laziness in enforcement of your own policies; it is also about being very clear with a partner should those policies change or you beef up enforcement. When you have somebody saying, "I'm still not totally sure what the problem is," that's an outrageous mistake on the part of Amazon.

There's no good reason at all companies should have to guess at what products you will or won't allow.