Softpaw Banned from FC08

[Kindrift]

Jery over at Softpaw Magazine is in a bit of a funk over the AAE's decision to ban sexual depictions of minors from Further Confusion.  Seems to be asking all his minions to harass a couple email addresses and whine "BUT IT'S LEGAL" despite the convention organizer's word being final.  Updates, notes, the final word:

The original post Jery wrote heavily implied he lost $16000 when FC suddenly changed their rules.  Fans sent dozens of emails to AAE/FC condemning them for ruining the magazine's finances with no warning.  They originally believed a very sudden rule change cost Softpaw a large amount of money.  This is what the banners on e621.net currently imply happened.  This is either incorrect history or malicious misinformation.  Jery's post was later clarified to state that $16000 was spent on printing, original art, and other unspecified expenses to produce some 2000 copies of the magazine, which is ten times what anyone expects they'd sell at a single convention.  These copies will be sold at other conventions and online.  At worst, they may have lost the $200 dealer table fee -- though when AAE offered to refund them the price, they refused and kept the table.  Softpaw has lost little (if any) actual investment with the change.  They have 2000 copies to sell, and they will in time be sold.  It may take a few months more but the expense will be recouped just the same.

The often repeated claim that AAE changed their rules without more than a couple weeks' notification is also completely wrong.  The section on dealer information shows the newsletter distributed January 21st, 2007 contained the rule update.  This was handed out at FC 2007.  All dealers must have read and agreed to the dealer rules before signing up for a table in the room; Jery and company has been signed up for a table there since last year, apparently.  The official rules show the ban and explain it on the very first page under a bolded header.  This notice has the same wording as the notice delivered during FC 2007.  The rules clearly changed nearly one year ago.   Jery was required to read the new rules before signing up for FC.  All blame lies on him.

AAE has many good reasons to ban "cub art" other than the law in place.  We can't guess what they were.  EuroFurence staff offered such a list of reasons, however AAE has only cited the law banning the depiction of minors.  This law may be unconstitutional or it may be misread and misused against the convention, but that's immaterial to AAE: they likely do not have the financial ability to contest the law in the event charges are brought against the convention.  Their only responsibility to their fans is to maintain the convention, and they do so by keeping a wide berth of the law.  Like other major conventions AAE more than likely has legal counsel.

[Freehaven]

They're not going to get anywhere with the "campaign" to get SoftPaw unbanned at FC; even if the art is technically legal, AAE still has the full legal right as the organizers of the con to decide what does and doesn't get displayed.  If Jery and the rest of his diaper-shitting brigade can't wrap their heads around that and they do actually start harassing AAE, I'd love to see AAE ban Jery himself from FC out of spite.

[ProvincialTwit]

I'd honestly like to see them go ahead and try selling it at FC regardless, if only to see them ejected from the convention for it.  Additionally, I get the feeling this is just the first (second? Did Eurofurence reneg on their softpaw ban?) of many cons to bring the hammer down on such material.  I think it really depends on which direction Doc Conway decides to take it, since it seems the entirety of furry cons look to him for 'guidance'.

Also, does this mean lil' Davey Simpson can't sell his shaven O&M prints at FC?  I do hope someone calls him out on it if he does.  Hint hint, Raix.

[Freehaven]

I get the feeling this is just the first (second? Did Eurofurence reneg on their softpaw ban?) of many cons to bring the hammer down on such material.

To the best of my knowledge, Eurofurence didn't back down on the ban.  And the reason Further Confusion is banning it?  California state law - quoting from the con's official Dealer Room Rules:

The following has been added to the Dealer Room Rules by the board of Anthropomorphic Arts and Education:

The PROTECT Act of 2003 and 18 USC 1466A remain the law in California. This law prohibits producing, distributing, receiving, or possessing with intent to distribute, an obscene visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Fiction is no defense; the law says, 'It is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exist.'

As required by this law, no such art may be sold or promoted at Further Confusion. The board feels that to protect the organization and more importantly, our attendees, we have no choice but to enforce this provision.

And after looking over Jery's FA journal about the subject -- specifically, the replies to said journal -- Jery actually seems to be dealing with the situation better than SoftPaw fans, a good portion of which are bitching about legalese and hoping FC goes under because of the ban.

[Arche Kruz]

Jery has actually matured a fair bit since his last bitter exchange with Arcturus over a year ago. Believe it or not, I am quite surprised myself.

Unfortunately though, his fans continue to be just as retarded as they ever were.

[Kindrift]

Jery hasn't grown up much.  He remains a passive-aggressive child, upset that he doesn't get to do what he wants at FC.  He accepts that his magazine is probably screwed as far as FC goes yet asks all his buddies to complain to the staff.  No legal threats this time, but childish nonetheless.  He should have known about this change in law well into last year.  His $16K expenditure is a little out of nowhere as well -- does that include the cost to fly him and his buddies up to FC?  I'm expecting him to complain about black mold in his apartment.

AAE has every right to ban the sale of certain artwork.  As a non-profit they're required to let the media see the event, as a result they're in the position of standing up for the furry community and presenting it as acceptable and positive.  The general populace is certainly going to look down on anything that looks like pedophilia, even when there's honestly none involved.  California law just requires them to do it.  All artists were notified of the change in January 2007 and the explanation of the law has been in the dealers' rules since then.  Three weeks from the convention, no dealer has any excuse whatsoever for missing the big bold section on the front page of the dealers' rules.

[LordNagetiere]

I'd honestly like to see them go ahead and try selling it at FC regardless, if only to see them ejected from the convention for it.  Additionally, I get the feeling this is just the first (second? Did Eurofurence reneg on their softpaw ban?) of many cons to bring the hammer down on such material.  I think it really depends on which direction Doc Conway decides to take it, since it seems the entirety of furry cons look to him for 'guidance'.

Basically, if there is a grey tidal zone from 'cute' to 'pedoesque', Softpaw would still be floating way out to sea with the sharks, and really, despite the fact I'm pleased that FC did this, it didn't exactly take balls. The rest of the civilized world kinda banned similar years and years ago, and furry is only now getting past their own geek all-inclusiveness to tamping on the issue a bit, and the ban only covers the magazine as far as I know. Nothing has been said of sidelong projects the 'artists' on the magazine do or sell. An easy (necessary, but damn damn easy) target was hit, and even then it's still a reverting to fence sitting later.

Eurofurence waited out on the German reconfiguration of the law, FC just has been not mentioning this since 2003, and only now is quietly dealing with it.

Kage will take years to come to a decisionas per usual, because despite his popularity, he's about as 'current' on the scene and happenings of the fandom as Alan Greenspan is on fashion. Granted, all it would take is someone to tell him how much this could screw all those loathesome babyfurs, and then maybe he'll snap out of his daydream of Godzilla thrashing the con to actually make some pseudo-formal rule about it.

Really, for such a gestapo styled con, AC is a dinosaur on codes of conduct and especially dealer conduct. I think the old wino just photocopies the same basic one from the 80's era Duckcons to safice, just like he had to do witrh his porn way back when. Uphill. Both ways.

They're not going to get anywhere with the "campaign" to get SoftPaw unbanned at FC; even if the art is technically legal

You have 'law' as an interest on your LJ now or what? Jack Thompson got you uppity and googling legal codes again? There is no precedent in the least as to whether care-bear like furries with wittle boy dongs getting bonked is pedo porn or not. There is no precise legality on the subject just because nothing has been decided on it elsewhere. You can hire (like Jery did) a lawyer to write a lot of fancy shit, but without a case, without a previous verdict there really is nothing to go off of.

The police tend to lean towards the side of 'something is wrong here' though, and people in America never fuck around with any mention or implication of pedophilia, sometimes to the extend of perverting the legal system. 'Technically legal' might not keep them out of jail if the pigs were called to the con hotel, and in a lot of ways, that's actually very just.

[rodox_video]

    I like this. This decision is an extremely rare instance of cooler heads prevailing in the furry fetish culture.

[ProvincialTwit]

Although perhaps an exercise in futility, I've tried to figure out how exactly they could've spent $16,000 'preparing' for the con (other than, y'know, pulling some random large number out of their ass).  Raix and I had a brief discussion on it in IRC.  I posited that, perhaps, since SP is such a specialized fetish rag, they may have to go through a print-on-demand service.  No idea if that's anywhere near true, but we ran with it for the sake of argument.

Rumor has it their wankmag costs $20.  Furries being who and what they are, they most likely went for the most expensive printing method available that still allowed them to make a slight profit.  For the sake of easy math, let's say it costs them $16 to print an issue.  So in preparation for a single convention, they would've had a thousand copies printed up.

Now, according to FC's website, last year's attendance was just over 2,000.  So, although this entire argument hangs off a number of easily disprovable assumptions, I have reached a conclusion:

Jery spent $16,000 printing his fagmag because he honestly believed half the convention would want to buy one.

And from that conclusion we can all posit that Jery is an idiot, and also lol, furries.

[GreenReaper]

I've been watching this develop for a while now. Your calculations are incorrect, but that's because they're based on bad data and assumptions.

The "$16,000 getting ready for FC" is a bit of a white lie. "$16,000 getting the third issue ready" is more like it. From what Jery said later, it's closer to $5 to print a copy, which has a current retail price of $25 - though you know how retail prices are for printed material. I believe the figure quoted was ~$9500 for 2000 copies (you don't do POD if you want reasonable costs). This is a good but not unbelievable price; it was even better before the US dollar took a dump (it's printed up north).

The other ~$7500 is stated as being for art and administration costs. They have to actually buy the art, including the rights to print it which you don't normally get with a commission, as well as ship magazines and people around (from my experience with WikiFur flyers, shipping can be a real PITA). I imagine legal factors in there too. Don't know their exact page rates - if you want to apply and find out, be my guest.

Jery has previously stated that over $4000 was cleared in revenue at Anthrocon 2007. That suggests at least 200 magazines bought; probably more considering combo discounts. It's not 2000, but I suspect the majority of the market is online anyway.

As for the tidal zone, I did a bit of work researching this while writing up the EF ban for WikiFur. While furries are not specifically mentioned, there is actually quite a bit of historical legislation and even Supreme Court judgments to draw on regarding the legality of "virtual child pornography" (summary: no child, no victim, no crime - the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 was struck down as a result).

As it turns out, you don't have to even read that far. The law mentioned talks about minors, which are defined in the U.S. Code as people under 18. People are defined (in Chapter 1, no less) as members of the species homo sapiens, which kinda blows that particular piece of legislation out of the water. Furries may be anthropomorphic, but they sure as hell aren't "virtually indistinguishable" from depictions of real humans (unlike this case).

Now, could FC ban them just because they didn't want them there? Surely. They don't have to give any reasons. But they haven't done that, nor indicated that they will do so . . . yet. In contrast, EF was very upfront about the reasons that they did not want it there, and the legal issue was just one of them.

[LordNagetiere]

From what Jery said later, it's closer to $5 to print a copy, which has a current retail price of $25

Not only are you also playing internet legal council, but you have what, buyer's remorse? You could have spent that 25 bucks on something much more... lasting, but admit it, few things would have brought you the same satisfaction.

[GreenReaper]

Not only are you also playing internet legal council, but you have what, buyer's remorse? You could have spent that 25 bucks on something much more... lasting, but admit it, few things would have brought you the same satisfaction.

I didn't buy one, but I believe pre-orders were $15 until just recently. Like I said, RRP doesn't mean much in publishing.

As for my credentials, I have a Masters in eLawyering from Hamilton University, based upon my abundant life experience.

[ProvincialTwit]

So on and so forth

I wasn't exactly going for any sort of realism; surely you've noticed my entire purpose here is to simply run the server and be a jackass.  Also I wanted an excuse to use because I've been playing Phoenix Wright too much lately.

What this entire situation boils down to, though, is as such:
1. The ban on SP-esque materials was posted last year.  And not in some smartass "hurfadurfa last year was only 15 days ago" manner; a full 12 months ago.  There needn't have been any sort of big announcement or bold lettering; it's up to the dealers to read the rules before they put up their money for a table.

2. While Jery may have revised his testimony, so to speak, it doesn't make up for the fact that he outright lied to begin with in a pretty obvious effort to stir up drama around and against the convention and AAE.  He claimed that he was out sixteen grand, and implied heavily that it was a direct result of this ban.  As you've stated above, the so-called 'monetary losses' were merely the cost of publishing what is quite frankly a depressingly large number of pedo wank rags.  The only thing Jery was 'out' (gay joke goes here lol) was the $200 for a dealer's table, which the con offered to refund.

3. Re: The various laws which may or may not apply.  Whether or not one could hide behind the "minor = person = homo sapien" loophole, or the Inuki-style defense of "Well they're not minors they're just young-looking" is pretty much up to law enforcement and/or the judiciary.  While "technical legality" may prevent anyone from going to prison, it certainly won't stop AAE from getting blacklisted among every hotel in the state.''

The whole thing is absolutely fucking ridiculous from the start.  Only in furry do you need to explicitly tell people that, y'know, drawing and selling pictures of children having sex is, y'know, sick and wrong and probably something to avoid doing.

[GreenReaper]

I've never played the game - not a big console fan. I hear it goes all devil-client in the end. I think this is one of the earlier cases, though.

The loophole, as you call it, is pretty big and important one for the furry fandom, and one not restricted to this particular situation. As I've said elsewhere, it is really not at all in our collective interests for furry characters to be defined as humans. If they were, half the furry adult art out there would be classified as bestiality - and half the nature videos as obscene snuff films. Fortunately, it is not; furries are not people, nor do they look like people for there to be any confusion about whether real people (minors or otherwise) are involved.

As I see it, there are two possible situations:
* AAE had got wind that lolicon was illegal with the Dwight Morely case, and so added a rule against it to cover their asses. When the news about EF hit, someone on the board then went "oh shit, this applies to furries, doesn't it?", didn't hire competent legal advice to check (breaking a basic fiduciary rule: if you don't know what you're doing, find someone who does), and told Softpaw that they were out of luck, no hard feelings.
* AAE hate "cub porn" and had this all planned from the start, but didn't want to look like the bad guys, so they slipped in a rule that they knew Jery and friends would assume wasn't intended to apply to them, then sprung it just before the time when it would have been contractual malfeasance* if they didn't. Hoping to escape any criticism, they phrased it as a simple matter of law - "we'd love to have you, but our hands are tied". Unfortunately, they weren't smart enough to find a law that actually applied.

Maybe I've been taking that "assume good faith" thing a bit too literally, but I lean far more towards the former, particularly because the phrasing of the rule in the dealers' rules is poorly worded and conflates the two sections of the rule into one (it states that all depictions of sexually explicit conduct in minors are obscene - an assumption contradicted by several major movies). AAE are good people. They've just misunderstood the law.

As for ignoring the rule, if you already know your characters aren't legally classified as minors, why would you worry about it in the first place? It's not like this is anything new - the law dates to 1998 - so lawyers should be up to speed on its application right now. It is unlikely that Softpaw failed to acquire legal advice before going into business; given that it is the core of their business, they're probably willing to spend more on it than FC.

The big issue here is that this could spread into all sorts of other areas. If depictions of "minor furries" are considered illegal - which, again, they're not - you suddenly have to figure out who they are, which may be an impossible task. Consider my character. If you didn't know, how old would you say he was? Major or minor? I happen to have this to point to, but others won't. Will FC's dealers be forbidden from drawing such characters in mature situations? This is where misapplication of laws enacted for good reasons starts to trample on free speech that hurts nobody.

* IANAL: I don't know if "contractual malfeasance" is a proper legal term, but it sure sounds cool.

[ProvincialTwit]

Oh what a hilarious WTF if such a case as this were to find its way into a popular video game.

At any rate, I'm not going to try to argue law with you here, as I admittedly can't be bothered to do the research to catch up.  I'm going to assume you're not bullshitting me here, because I don't think you have any particular reason to lie.

That being said, AAE gave ample warning time, and Jery falsely claimed it cost him roughly the price of a cheap mid-size sedan.  The entire thing was sensationalized amidst the Softpaw fan community, persecution fursecution complexes inflated, drama resulted, and we all had a good laugh over it.

This whole situation brings up a couple other thoughts, of things that tend to run rampant among furries.

The first is the very misguided notion of 'free speech' that afflicts not just furries, but most 'internet people' as a whole: Free Speech does not necessarily apply on private property.  Things like LJ's slash-fiction ban, FA's attempt to ban pedo, and AAE's softpaw ban are not somehow interfering with 'free speech'.  FA and LJ are free internet services offered on privately owned servers, and are well within their rights to change the terms of service for their free services.  Conventions, while not necessarily free, are also private gatherings held on private property.  Even if we assume malice in AAE's ban of softpaw, they are still well within their own rights, and fail to infringe on anyone else's rights, least of all their right to not fucking go if they feel slighted.

I got to rambling a bit in this second paragraph so it's been edited down to basics for tl;dr.

Second is that whole 'include all and shun none' mentality.  By banning a particular type of art from the dealers' room, AAE has, in the eyes of a furry, banned their fetish from the con. They'll make a lot of noise in blogs and journals about being shunned or banned or excluded.  This brings out the white knights who insist on defending all in the name of unity, the worriers who think their fetish is next, and the semi-normal people who think it's not such a bad idea.  Drama³.

I've completely forgotten where I was going with all this, other than pointing out that furries are inherently ridiculous and Jery & Co. are idiots.

[GreenReaper]

I might be mistaken, but I try not to lie, even if I do have a good reason. From what I've seen that strategy rarely works out in the long term.

We're on the same page with people confusing protection against prosecution as meaning they have the right to free speech on private property. AAE is running the dealers room, and they can say what goes in there, without having to give any reasons at all. They might well be subject to criticism, but it is their right to do so.

That said, decisions to restrict a particular group can cause resentment, particularly if there is no proof that said group is actually causing trouble for the convention. Speaking as one of your white knights, I would be fine with their legal argument if I thought it held water - you don't want to get in trouble with the feds - but as far as I can see, it does not. Eurofurence's was similarly flawed (though IIRC they had some more ambiguous precedents). They made it clear that wasn't the only issue, though - and consequentially took more flak for it.

As for worries about the media, hotel, etc. . . . if people were going to make a fuss it would be about the fact that sex with animals are involved, way before anyone gets to figuring out a tiny proportion of them look younger than the others. The networks are still stuck on the concept of furpiles, and CSI was, what, close to five years ago? The only media that's likely to notice such subtleties is our own.

If legal issues really are the only thing they're worried about, then AAE will probably reverse their decision on review. That would be the quickest solution to the drama - and I think it's the most likely, though it might not happen until after the con.

[ProvincialTwit]

Well, as far as I can tell, AAE isn't necessarily restricting any particular group, in as much as they're simply restricting a particular kind/type/style/fetish of art.  One of the points I'd meant to make in a roundabout way was that, since furrydom (and furries in general) are so heavily defined by art, it's almost expected that a particular fetish group would take such a ban as a personal slight.

Something I'd left out of my last post was that, again, so far as I know, there's nothing in the rules that says nobody's allowed to trade pedo wank rags privately.  Sure, there are bound to be rules saying you can't sell things inside conspace, but nothing's stopping Jery from hauling a box-o-porn up to his room (outside conspace) and having a private party wherein money just happens to change hands.

I can't necessarily say it's wrong for Jery & Co to feel slighted by AAE for this, but I will say it's more than a little silly.  Unless the con chair comes out and says "I hate Jery and also Softpaw and the people who buy it and that's why I enacted this ban," it's all just rumor, conjecture, and overreaction.

I will yield to the argument that blaming it on legal issues was probably a bad idea for AAE.  As you and many others have pointed out, the material does meet certain technicalities so as to not be illegal; if the AAE holds to that excuse then they look very bad as they don't really have a leg to stand on.

Hence we see why nothing will ever change in furrydom as far as fetishes and the horrible smut that follows.  Because of the previously mentioned 'all inclusive' nature of furry (see my thread linking to 'geek fallacies'), anybody who speaks out against any fetish, or subset, or hell any individual, is at risk of themselves being spoken out against, or shunned, or what have you.  I can sympathize with AAE for hiding behind what has been revealed as a weak defense, because if it turns out their intent was to dissuade a particular group from attending, then this was the only way for them to do so without violating the unwritten 'include everyone' rule.  (Also the whole of furry is so goddamn Pass/Agg nobody would ever actually come right out and say it.)

If, as you say, legal issues are the only worry, then they'll honestly have no choice but to reverse the decision unless they can come up with some other excuse.  Which sucks, because they should be lauded for shunning pedos, not chastised.

[Kindrift]

At last year's Softpaw room party they did not sell any magazines.  However, if you donated $20 or more to them they would give you a free copy of their magazine.  See how this works?  There's probably just a little more scrutiny on them this year but they did most certainly do business out of their room party last year.

[BigPointyTeeth]

At last year's Softpaw room party they did not sell any magazines.  However, if you donated $20 or more to them they would give you a free copy of their magazine.  See how this works?  There's probably just a little more scrutiny on them this year but they did most certainly do business out of their room party last year.

Wait wait. I think you are mincing facts a little there. I was there with you.. They held a free pizza party and as a thanks for helping pay for all the pizza you could take one of the copies of their magazine they happened to have.
I remembered being confused by the obtuse wording while scoring my @$$ some free pizza and listening to minced rationalizations about cub porn and how it is both legal and not really 100% about depicting kids getting fucked...

[LordNagetiere]

Eurofurence's was similarly flawed (though IIRC they had some more ambiguous precedents). They made it clear that wasn't the only issue, though - and consequentially took more flak for it.

A total of four regulars stopped attending. This was reflected by an 8% drop in con registrations. Teehee. Really though, that's German law, and from what I understand, they're a bit more nutty over there. It may have been very well warrented legally, and regardless, YAY FOR NOT BEING A PEDO HAVEN.

As for worries about the media, hotel, etc. . . . if people were going to make a fuss it would be about the fact that sex with animals are involved, way before anyone gets to figuring out a tiny proportion of them look younger than the others. The networks are still stuck on the concept of furpiles, and CSI was, what, close to five years ago? The only media that's likely to notice such subtleties is our own.

You're hopelessly naive then. It never has been, nor never will be a huge shift in paradigm for a good lot of Americans to view something as Gay, Pedo and Bestial when it only sports one of the three. Particularly, with my few (thank God it was only a few) run-ins with SP purchasers, they're just overjoyed to mention their fetish (like, in reality most furries) and hey, maybe if their favorite part of the con was banned without them being explicitly kicked out too, they'll get the damned hint to shut the hell up.

Besides, these are cons. They've never been known for being particularly open concerning image and media exposure. Getting a label like 'pedo factory' is a surefire way pretty much any convention can be blacklisted, and sued in a position where it can't hire proper council to defend itself.

I will yield to the argument that blaming it on legal issues was probably a bad idea for AAE.  As you and many others have pointed out, the material does meet certain technicalities so as to not be illegal; if the AAE holds to that excuse then they look very bad as they don't really have a leg to stand on.

I don't really get that. Past basic concepts on what is/isn't pedo 'art', you really do have to err on the side of caution on the issue. People in America are nutty over it, to the point where a grandmother almost went up the river for taking a picture of her daughter in the bathtub. A picture that wouldn't have batted a lash twenty years ago. Anything the con deems fit to keep itself minimally protected from such a culture and potential legal issues, is understandable. They banned Softpaws, afterall, not Jery.

Besides, 'technically legal' is oft the realm of finding out once in Court, which although might be an option for Jery, is not something the AAE's wallet or public face can afford.

Kudos to them.