Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

So many good laughs in those. I had only seen Lee’s. LOVE IT!!

you forgot the link to PBW’s letter from Ann Jacobs. That’s when it really gets scary.

And what’s the SB response to this?
http://www.vickihinze.com/weblog.asp

show me the law?

Re:misspelling.

One of my authors told a list about when she emailed them and got an autoreply asking for people’s “patients” while they were out.

The point that seems ot get most ire up is that it’s not just the more sprovocative covers that will be banned, but just about everything.

OK, here’s my take on the Vicki Hinze article:

The RWA risks losing its non-profit status merely by *linking* to sites that contain objectionable words and or images? Fine. Then let the RWA provide the relevant federal laws for us to scrutinize. The fact that they didn’t refer to anything specific in their announcement makes it rather suspect to me.

The feds have defined what porn is? Last time I checked, it was still very much a community standards thing, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m not exactly on the up-and-up on American lawmaking. If the feds have defined what pornography is, then by all means, refer to the specific publication that contains these guidelines so we can see for ourselves if the covers and language qualify as pornographic. If indeed according to the guidelines, bad language = porn, then you’d have to argue that Pulp Fiction and Scarface are pornographic, which would be reaaaallly stretching the definition of what constitutes porn.

Also, if this truly *is* about The Man stomping on the poor bitty RWA and them having to comply, why haven’t they tried to at least fight it? I’m sure that at the very least the ACLU would be interested in collaborating; last time I checked, those guys are very interested in free speech and censorship issues. In other words: I can sort of sympathize if the RWA truly has been put between a rock and a hard place, but there’s legal recourse, which by all appearances they didn’t really bother to check into.

In other words: Vicki’s black-and-white solution (“Work for RWA to retain its not-for-profit organizational status, or not”) is drastic, rather silly and lacks nuance.

Oh, and thanks for pointing out the PBW entry about Ann Jacobs. Will add it to the list of links.

Great entry. There’s been a follow up response by TTQ. It’s currently making the rounds on the lists. Of course, it doesn’t clear anything up. :-/ And I’m working on the Permalinks. ;-P

Holy Cuntmonkey Cocksucker. I am appalled.

Absolutely appalled.

So disgusted I can’t even think of a response.

I have to get the Shit Fuck Cunt Cocksucker Motherfucker and Tits out of the way first.

Perhaps I need to call their offices and sing ‘Shut Your Fucking Face, Uncle Fucker?’

OK I have a thought now.

Last week Barbara Walters made a comment on the View that breast feeding in public made her uncomfortable. Women descended upon the studio and the network headquarters for a breast-in where they all breast fed in public in protest.

So: here’s my idea. Candy, start saving up those frequent flyer miles. The RWA has their annual conference in New York City once every 4 years. I know this year’s conference is in Reno, though I’m not sure about next year.

While I’d love to suggest we all go to the RWA conference gala, strip down and start humping our significant others, I’m sure this will not be of great enjoyment to many of us. However, toplessness is legal in many states, including New York. So, shirts and bras off, ladies. If they can’t handle artistic displays of nudity on their own book covers, let’s flash a little titty and make them listen to our point (har) of view.

Maybe combine the two and sing while flashing?

Though mine are a sad sight. It may scare rather than titillate (pun intended)

If you want to refer to a morally offensive sex act, at least fucking spell the word right
Hear, hear! That mispelling was driving me mad every time I saw the quotation reproduced.

Y’know, RWA might have consulted with another non-profit org that knows a thing or two about books, the Internet, and having to deal with obscenity law: the American Library Association. Thanks to ALA, I know quite a lot about US Internet regulations, even though I don’t live or work there.

Hinze doesn’t specify, but the only law I think of that she might be referring to is COPA—which isn’t even being enforced right now thanks to court challenges. There would be lots of time for RWA to deal with the problem if/when COPA goes into force.

If RWA had consulted with ALA they would have received a mountain of information.  I swear no other non-profit lobbies harder than ALA - and as an organization they are downright rabid about intellectual freedom/censorship.

When CIPA came along it sent many libraries in a tail-spin - essentially saying if you don’t filter, you don’t get federal funding.  Many libraries (who actually have money) chose not to comply - while others who enjoyed reduced telecommunications costs looked into filtering options.

I’ll spare my long-standing tangent on filtering and book censorship - and instead give you the short, dirty version:

I have always believed that anything a child reads in a book, or sees on a book cover, is far tamer than what they’ll see on a DVD, video game or on the nightly news.  And for that matter - when it comes to the Interent, parents shouldn’t fear porn.  Sure some of it can get very sick - but I’d much rather have my daughter see a picture of an erect penis than talk to a 55-year-old pervert in a chat room.

That’s just me being silly though 8-/

I’m a librarian myself, and one who supports ALA’s rabid take on free speech. Reading back I see that I forgot to set the “outraged sarcasm” light blinking on my original comment—what I meant was that RWA clearly didn’t, but should have consulted with ALA.

I could type in a whole ‘nother rant here, but I won’t. Something else just struck me, though - what about the Canadian chapters, eh? Different laws up here, after all.

ROTFL.  Great post!  Nothin’ else to add. :-)

Here’s a link to a website on library law that deals with federal and state obscenity laws: http://www.llrx.com/features/obscenitylaws.htm

I also know that 47 U.S.C., the Telecommunications Act, contains the so-called Communications Decency Act (section 230), which has been interpreted as protecting websites from liability for “offensive” 3rd party content.  There’s currently a case before the California Supreme Court that may have a significant impact on freedom of speech for blogs, websites, etc.  As it stands, websites can’t be prosecuted as “publishers” of 3rd party content, but the question of “distribution” is still an issue that the state and federal Supreme Courts have yet to settle.  I wonder if the RWR issue is connected to the controversy surrounding 47 U.S.C. Section 230. Although many of the cases have related to defamation, so-called “obscene” material has been targeted, as well.

In all my reading over the weekend. ALA site, CIPA, COPA, The obscenity law, the ACLU site, and various supreme court decisions (and I thought I’d read that the Supreme court had struck down the CDA, but maybe it was only certain sections of it).  anyway… from what I can ascertain the important regulations are the obscenity law. And the supreme court has 3 very specific criteria (and all must be met) to be deemed obscenity.

Hey if I’m wrong on any of this, pipe up, I’ve been trying to inform myself all weekend what this issue is about.

So now that I’ve somewhat informed myself, of course I have a thousand more questions.

First (and not necessarily most important), why didn’t the RWA simply state that ‘all materials and affiliations must comply with XYZ regulations’.

Second, if any author, publisher, distributor is under criminal investigation for violating these laws, RWA is well within their rights to remove links etc pending the outcome, however, I don’t believe they should take preemptive action on things that may be, in future, deemed obscene.

Third, if they are being pressured by groups or government depts, why are they simply rolling over? Why not fight? Isn’t the onus on the government to prove the content is illegal? (I could be totally wrong here, perhaps licenses can be pulled without due process)

I’m fairly certain publishers would join them in their fight as it affects all of us, but for goodness sake show me the criminal activity first before you make sweeping bannings. To my knowledge no author, publisher or distributor (ok Amazon),  is under criminal investigation… If I’m wrong on this point tell me?

So some people are offended by certain depictions and words, well tough. I hate to think the RWA is more concerned with having a nice image, than being an advocate for my professional rights.

X

“I thought I’d read that the Supreme court had struck down the CDA, but maybe it was only certain sections of it.”

The Supreme Court struck down sub-sections of the CDA from 47 U.S.C. Section 223, but Section 230 is alive and well.  Courts have largely interpreted it broadly, but it seems the tide may be turning on that, and I am frankly afraid of the effects on bloggers and sites like this and others if Section 230 is read more narrowly.  Right now, it’s a pretty big shield for website operators and bloggers to protect themselves from potentially offensive third party content, and is therefore related to free speech protections generally and to maintaining the line between free speech and unprotected (obscene, defamatory, etc.) speech.  It’s true that are there three parts of the obscenity “test,” and that these are issues of fact that must be tried by a judge or jury.  State obscenity laws vary, and of course they can’t violate the federal constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.  But if website operators, bloggers, etc. can be viewed as *distributors* of defamatory or obscene material, their protections will be more limited.  Even Amazon was sued for not removing a reader-generated book review (Schneider v. Amazon, 2001), as was eBay for not removing negative feedback on a seller(Grace v. eBay, 2004).  Amazon was found to be protected under Section 230, and eBay by its User Agreement (but NOT Section 230).

I don’t know what’s behind the RWA “guidelines”—whether it’s preemptive self-censorship or whether it’s related to the apparent conflict with erotic Romance, or what.  But I do think that anyone involved in the Internet should familiarize themselves with some basic issues related to Internet and Telecommunications law.  And watch what happens with Barrett v. Rosenthal in the CA Supreme Court.

This is an email from RWA President Tara Taylor Quinn to author/Loose-Id editor Allie McKnight, forwarded WITH PERMISSION FROM TARA TAYLOR QUINN AND RECIPIENT ALLIE MCKNIGHT, dated today, June 6, 2005.

It is NOT the “official response” referred to earlier, which has not been released for general dissemination. 

It is free to be shared, so long as all information, including Allie’s name as the person who received the e-mail, remains intact.

(Allie McKnight
w/a Sage Grayson
www.sagegrayson.com)

Allie,

You have my permission to say there was a misunderstanding. I spoke of the
non-profit status in terms of our mission statement, only in that the IRS
expects us to make our determinations based on our mission statement in
terms of our expenditures - there were many questions being asked at once
and many thought the graphical standards related to our mission statement - it did only in that we are romance writers and as such straight erotica does not fit our mission, but I also clarified that erotic romance does meet our mission statement. I spoke about positive correspondence from an erotica publisher who has assured us that she is publishing erotic romance.

After the meeting the Desert Rose website hostess came up to me with the
chapter president in tow to clarify that the graphical standards did apply
to the Desert Rose website. She explained that she had just spent a lot of time redoing the pages to include the RWA service mark on all pages. I
explained that yes, that did, then apply.

If you or anyone else has any further questions on this, please contact me
directly. Rumors take up far too much time!!

ttq
Tara Taylor Quinn,
President, Romance Writers of America

****(end email from TTQ)

This is my take on this information:

The bit about the IRS?  THAT’s where the Feds/law comes in. And it has to do with crafting a definition of romance for the organization in order to retain its non-profit status. The actual definition is entirely up to the board, and if they WANTED it to include erotic imagery/excerpts, it could. They have decided it shouldn’t, and therefore can’t allow any association of the RWA trademark with sites that contain such imagery/excerpts.

If, for example, the Comstock Laws or any of the other obscenity statutes mentioned above came into play, I have no doubt TTQ or some other member of the board would be quick to mention them—why wouldn’t they? What a perfect way to quell the controversy, no?

This is about defining romance as a genre for the purposes of the organization, and defining it in a restrictive, exclusionary manner.

And it sucks ass.

Selah

Thanks for the update, Selah. And you’re right: sounds like that this exclusionary tactic is more-or-less voluntary on the part of the RWA.

Bah.

And the backpedaling begins… we never said that, we never meant that, we were misquoted. 

Snort.

Selah, thanks for posting that.  It’s all about the definition of romance, is it?  The definition that RWA has the power to set?  The definition that isn’t imposed from the outside, but that is decided upon by the board?  Well, that blows the poor-little-misquoted-me bullshit straight out of the water, if you ask me.

And what Selah quoted still doesn’t address the full o’ crap bits about how if the RWA links to sites that contain adult material that they’ll be blocked by content filtering software in schools and libraries. Because as far as I know, that bit is full o’ crap—that’s generally not how filtering software works, plus if I remember correctly there’re still a lot of unsettled issues regarding implementing CIPA in libraries.

Thanks Lynn.