Is Paypal Back up to Their Censorship Tricks Again? - The Digital ...

Remember back in February when Paypal decided to stop processing?payments for Smashwords because SW helped authors sell ebooks which Paypal thought were icky? It took the whole of the internet to show Paypal that their decision was not a popular one.

Unfortunately it looks like Paypal forgot that lesson, because I have a report from one cover artist whose account has been closed by Paypal because she was using the service to be paid for making icky images.

It was on Thursday night I read about Kerry Chin, an artist who goes by the name of Dragon Reine on Deviant Art. She had recently made a book cover for Amelia Gormley, a self-published author with several books in Smashwords, Amazon, and elsewhere.

That book is called Acceleration, a M/M romance. I have not read the book, but as you can see over on GoodReads, the cover is relatively tame for a romance novel.

But apparently it?s not tame enough for Paypal, because they told Kerry that:

We are hereby notifying you that, after a recent review of your account activity, it has been determined that you are in violation of PayPal?s Acceptable Use Policy regarding your sales / offers of adult commisions of digital art on http://dragonreine.deviantart.com.

Kerry?s account has been ?limited?, as Paypal put it, but for all intents and purposes it is closed. She cannot withdraw funds nor even check her transaction history.

I?m sure some of my readers will think this is a reasonable action on the part of Paypal, but given the resolution of the Smashwords censorship incident this Spring it really is not.

After having been bludgeoned by half the internet (yours truly included), Paypal revised their policy on book censorship to exclude the text of the books. Paypal was only going to object to specific titles:

First and foremost, we are going to focus this policy only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text. The policy will prohibit use of PayPal for the sale of e-books that contain child pornography, or e-books with text and obscene images of rape, bestiality or incest (as defined by the U.S. legal standard for obscenity: material that appeals to the prurient interest, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value).

And that is from Paypal?s own blog, too.

If you look at the cover image again, you will probably agree that Amelia?s book is allowed under Paypal?s new policy. I don?t think I was stretching things by writing that it was a relatively tame image; I have seen more explicit imagery on M/F romance novels.

So what we have here is a book with a cover which the author is allowed to sell under Paypal?s policy while at the same time the author is not allowed to pay the cover artist.

Yes, it is that bizarre.

I have reached out to Paypal for comment, but apparently no one is watching the? Facebook page or reading emails, and Anuj Nayar, the Director of Communications at PayPal, does not read his email on the weekends. More fool him.

TBH, I think we?re looking at a mistake on the part of Paypal. There is a clear contradiction between the previously stated policy and the account closure.

But in the absence of a statement from Paypal I can only assume that this is going to be yet another incident where the Internet is going to have to beat up on Paypal until they back down.

Someone pass me a torch.

Update: Paypal restored Kerry?s account. While I still have not heard anything from Paypal (and she was told the account closure was permanent), it seems that Paypal does have someone watching news blogs on the weekend.

source

Source: http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2012/11/11/is-paypal-back-up-to-their-censorship-tricks-again/

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