Amazon is selling a book for pedophiles

[dreamseeker]

The book is called The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure, and can be found here.

Does this get a pass because it's considered free speech??

[Leslie Anne]

That's just going WAY too far!

I'm a librarian in training, so I'm all about free speech but this is promoting something illegal (as well as disgusting and immoral).

[Drolefille]

It appears to be self-published. I'm not sure that this actually counts as illegal material. It's one of those 'downsides to free speech' things that can't really be resolved without placing limits on speech we'd like to protect.

[Leslie Anne]

I didn't say the book was "illegal material." It promotes crimes.

The thing is that Amazon is not the Government. They can choose not to sell a product and sadly they've decided that profits win out.

[33girl]

Without being able to read any sample pages of the book, it's pretty hard to evaluate it. The title is repugnant, but saying "it promotes crimes" is impossible just from a title.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

I didn't say the book was "illegal material." It promotes crimes.

The thing is that Amazon is not the Government. They can choose not to sell a product and sadly they've decided that profits win out.

I didn't say you said anything? Who said you said anything?

Books that promote crimes, a tricky definition to begin with, also are obviously protected.

Nile can decide not to sell a product, but without a statement from them I can't judge what their consideration is on the matter. It was published on 10/28/10 from what I can tell and I'm willing to give them longer than 2 weeks or so to address it. I don't know that I agree with your 'sadly.' I very much fall into the "defending to the death your right to say it" category and even though Nile is a private entity I'm wary of even so-called good censorship.

ETA: Name of the website changed because I hate when links are added to my post without my permission. No John, will not help you make money by people clicking on the site's name in my post. Nuh uh.

[Leslie Anne]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Without being able to read any sample pages of the book, it's pretty hard to evaluate it. The title is repugnant, but saying "it promotes crimes" is impossible just from a title.

"Product Description
This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter sentences should they ever be caught."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

"Product Description
This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter sentences should they ever be caught."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist.

That's a product description. It's not the actual product.

[Drolefille]

Story literally broke this morning.

You've probably heard that [removed by Drolefille] is selling a pedophile guide called The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure. Outrage! Know what's really outrageous? Since the story broke this morning, sales of the self-published e-book have shot up by 101,000%.

This afternoon Phillip Greaves, the The Pedophile Guide's 42-year-old author, said he'd only sold one copy of his guide to being a child predator. When TechCrunch wrote about the book just six hours ago, it was the 158,221st best-selling Kindle e-books.

Amazon Pedophilia Guide Gets 101,000-Percent Sales BoostBut as of this writing, it's catapulted to 146th among all paid Kindle e-books. According to Amazon's "Mover's and Shaker's" board, that's an increase of over 101,000%in less than a day. Even as Mommy bloggers, tech bloggers and Twitter users call for an Amazon boycott over the title, The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure is selling like it was just announced as an Oprah Book Club selection.

People want to know what the fuss is about. (Or a surprisingly large portion of Kindle owners are pedophiles.) And what they're finding is sort of underwhelming. Sure, The Pedophile's Guide contains creepy instructions about how to use rubber gloves as condoms for little boys. And there's some muddled philosophical defense of pedophelia: "The nectar of love has been given from the hand of compassion and grace." But we can safely say this book will not convince a single regular person to become a child predator. Nor does it include a pull-out map of secret shops where already-existing pedophiles can buy underage sex-slaves or anything.

From the author

"I can see where they would come to that kind of conclusion and to a certain extent I wanted that kind of notoriety to effect the book. ... I wanted it to effect sales," he said.

Source

And from TechCrunch, the company's response.

“Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.”

So no, it really wasn't about the money. People didn't start buying the book until they caused a ruckus.

[Leslie Anne]

Of course it's about the money. Do you really think that they didn't know it would cause a ruckus?

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

Of course it's about the money. Do you really think that they didn't know it would cause a ruckus?

That is probably not the most offensive self-published ebook they sell. It's just the one that has pedophile in it's name.

Sometimes being ethically consistent means standing up for things you really don't want to stand up for. Honestly if they cave, which they probably will, I'll have less respect for them.

[southbymidwest]

Oh please. If Amazon didn't think they could make money off the book, they never would have listed it. It's the American way.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by southbymidwest

Oh please. If Amazon didn't think they could make money off the book, they never would have listed it. It's the American way.

They do self-publishing. It costs them practically nothing and the author pays a fee. It's not as if Nile chose to publish or list it in particular. It's probably entirely automated at this point.

[southbymidwest]

Originally Posted by Drolefille

They do self-publishing. It costs them practically nothing and the author pays a fee. It's not as if Nile chose to publish or list it in particular. It's probably entirely automated at this point.

And by listing it for a fee from the author, they are making money off the book.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by southbymidwest

And by listing it for a fee from the author, they are making money off the book.

Right, but they list every book 'for the money.' Their actions with this book are not, at present, any different from any other book. So claiming that this book in particular was listed for the sake of making money and causing a ruckus is disingenuous.