Forum - View topicNEWS: J-Novel Club: Amazon Delists Some Light Novels, Manga on Kindle
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Netero
Posts: 174 |
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Even before current AI technologies, which are pretty good at spotting nudity, computers could recognise at least some nude drawings (and photos) if they were in colour simply by calculating the proportion of pink pixels in the image! |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1059 |
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The only physical book I've heard has been remove is NGNL, and that has some illustrations of underage and even prepubescent characters that might've triggered a harsher response.
The majority of LN illustrations are black and white, and even the ones in color often feature dramatic lighting that leaves the skin some other color than pink. |
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Reviell
Posts: 1 |
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Most of taken down series have colored bathing illustrations (per link above in this thread). AI can track faces and forms too, so it's possible to make some advanced one to make a list of suspicious images and check them manually later (Like, you can suggest that if there is only 2-3 primary colors used + face detected then there are no colors for the clothes and image need human to check it. Just come up with a lot of suggestions like this one and you'd get pretty advanced AI) I just thought to move my LN purchases to Amazon. Time to change my plans and check other digital platforms. Good it happened before I actually moved. |
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samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2259 Location: San Antonio, USA |
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One good difference between this now and the old bad days of manga censorship is that even if we are forced to strip some images out of Amazon Kindle editions that won't affect the versions on any other stores. Printing two versions of a physical book is not cost effective but with digital it's pretty easy, and any missing illustrations we could upload somewhere for people to access (as long of the Japanese publisher agreed). It might even slowly help educate more people about what's going on rather than just keeping them off sale. We managed to reupload Grimgar 1 with one of the color front matter (the bath illustration) stripped out earlier today as an experiment. We will wait a week and see if it gets removed again or not. If it works we will do the approval work with the Japanese puba fo determine what censoring actions we might take or not take to attempt to get as much as possible re-uploaded. |
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Netero
Posts: 174 |
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In general I would agree with you, but no matter how annoyed I might be that my LN pre-orders were disappeared without even letting me know, Amazon is a private space and its CEO has extensive rights in saying what is and isn't sold there. So my only recourse is to vote with my feet and buy my books elsewhere in future. That said, this purported rule of "no nudity in text-based media" does appear to uniquely discriminate against Japanese light novels, so maybe there's some mileage in trying to approach the situation from a race discrimination rather than a censorship angle, but that still feels like a bit of a stretch. |
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Uthred
Posts: 79 |
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But several of these titles dont have any nude illustrations in them? |
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Adv193
Posts: 192 |
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Another issue to note on this is that with books and video games they do not have the same censorship standards that the media has which is why the anime is at least unaffected, considering that the majority of the anime produced has to follow censorship standards and for the ones based off the manga, requires alterations or removals of certain scenes.
Besides Amazon is a cheap sell-out when it comes to removing controversial material as anything for instance as a TV episode that gets banned gets pulled from Amazon Video. Luckily Youtube's own video-purchasing service can help with this. |
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Kalessin
 Posts: 931 |
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In general, I agree that Kobo is good, but to prove that they're not perfect, quite a few volumes of To Love Ru and To Love Ru Darkness got taken off the platform (either late last year or early this year - I forget which). Between the two series, only 12 volumes are currently available, and Seven Seas isn't bothering to put up new volumes for pre-order. It's all a bit weird, since it's seemingly random volumes which are missing, but when I contacted Seven Seas about it, they said
Similarly, Yokai Girls had volumes 1 - 8 pulled, though 9 and 10 are there, and IIRC, 10 was put up for pre-order after 1 - 8 got pulled. So, oddly, it seems like Seven Seas is putting new volumes of Yokai Girls up on Kobo but not the new volumes of To Love Ru Darkness. I don't know if those are the only series to be pulled, but they're the only ones that I've noticed. That being said, the series that Amazon has been taking down are still up on Kobo (including No Game No Life), and I'm not aware of any light novel series getting pulled - just those manga series from Seven Seas. I've had a very good experience with Kobo overall, and in general, I'd recommend Kobo as the best place to buy e-books (best image quality, easily removed DRM, solid title selection, etc.), but the fact that those manga series got pulled isn't exactly encouraging. |
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K.o.R
 Posts: 228 |
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NGNL is currently still available on Book Depository... an Amazon subsidiary as far as I know.
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LegitPancake
 Posts: 1311 Location: Texas, USA |
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Yea, if this keeps going on, then it may be safest to put censored ebooks on amazon (without problematic illustrations, but the prose and story itself should be unaltered), and then direct customers to alternative storefronts if they wish to buy the ebooks uncensored. Or like Sam said above, to upload the problematic illustrations on the publisher's own website for people to view if their version is missing them. It's unfortunate, but when Amazon accounts for such a huge market share of the sales, you really can't afford not to offer your product on amazon. The same thing happens with eroge on consoles; they may be unaltered on switch and PC, but on Playstation, scenes and art cg's may be taken out (otherwise Sony wouldn't let them be sold). So rather than lose a large paying portion of the market, those that refuse to go to another storefront will be subjected to an inferior and altered product. Don't want a censored ebook? Don't buy from amazon.
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MetalEmolga7
Posts: 71 |
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I am of the mindset that billion dollar corporations shouldn't be the ones that decide what media people can and cannot consume
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Raneth
Posts: 271 |
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Indie romance authors have been dealing with Amazon's "Content guidelines" BS for years, so it's not just because these books are illustrated. I'm surprised they would pull their usual arbitrary, ham-fisted censorship attempts on established publishers, but I guess no one is big enough to stand up to Amazon.
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CrypticPurpose
 Posts: 342 |
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This is such BS... Amazon sells all kind of filth ranging from wonderful to terrifying, and *this* gets kicked off? They sell electroshock eurethral splints and pornographic Lego novels, for f*s sake!
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Jeff Bauersfeld
Posts: 111 |
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I hear you, but they're not deciding what you can and can't consume; rather, they're deciding what you can and can't consume from them. They are not forcibly preventing anyone else from selling these works or you from buying the somewhere else. It sucks, and as the biggest game in town this will negatively affect artists and publishers, but Amazon isn't preventing you from consuming any content. They are not a monopoly and they are not an agent of the government. |
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LegitPancake
Posts: 1311 Location: Texas, USA |
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3 more light novels from J-Novel Club were removed from Amazon Kindle today. Lazy Dungeon Master volume 8, Wild Times with a Fake Fake Princess volume 1, and Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension volume 5. http://twitter.com/jnovelclub/status/1284193053142650892
Also Mixed Bathing volume 3 just got removed. Last edited by LegitPancake on Sun Jul 19, 2020 3:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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