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Techdirt reports that the German government, armed with a law that has its origin in more captive content (movies -- the kind shown in theatres) and attempting to apply it to the internet (ebook sales).
Heise.de (German) and Boersenblatt (German) reported on Friday and Thursday that the Jugendschutzbehörde (Youth Protection Authority) has handed down a new ruling which extended Germany's Youth Media Protection Law to include ebooks.
As a result of a lawsuit (legal complaint?) over the German erotica ebook Schlauchgelüste (Pantyhose Cravings), the regulators have decided that ebook retailers in Germany can now only sell adult ebooks between 10 pm and 6 am local time (4 pm and midnight, eastern US).
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Germany Says You Can't Sell Adult Ebooks Until After 10 PM
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Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimios on Wednesday June 24 2015, @07:48AM
Nobody has any problem with violence, not even the children. However everybody is up in arms when it comes to porn. Guess what, if you make a big deal then the kids will consider it a big deal and be more interested in it.
If everyone would just say "it's just porn" and get on with their lives then maybe we could start teaching kids AND parents about having a healthy sexual habits.
I'm pretty sure that the general public embarrassment regarding sex results in way too many cases of infertility or even fatalities through STDs or unwanted pregnancies.
Are there any studies about kids who grew up in households where porn use is common and where parents actually teach kids the right things about sex?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:05AM
I was born in the 1980's, and grew up with an Internet connection starting around 1995. I've seen it all! I should be in a study!
I've never understood the big deal about protecting people from porn, or being protected from it. The only thing that having access to an endless supply of porn for the past 20 years has done for me is mentally scar me with the knowledge that I like red-haired girls more than blondes.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:15AM
Germany is, on the whole, very tolerant regarding nudity, sexual activity and the realities of relationships - far more so than many other nations. I am surprised, therefore, that such a law is being suggested. I note that it is based on other legislation regarding advertising and teleshopping dating back to 2002, so perhaps there will be some changes to bring it more up to date.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @09:50AM
This is Germany we are speaking about here. In Germany, people are far more sensitive to violence than to nudity. Indeed, I guess quite a few things we see on regular TV (including some stuff shown before 22:00) would be considered pornographic in the US. OTOH something can well be adult rated because of violence, without having any sexually explicit material at all.
And BTW, I've heard that in the US you cannot even show a condom on TV. While in Germany, when AIDS was a hot topic, we even had official TV advertisements for using condoms.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 24 2015, @03:33PM
I wonder about the age distribution. In the USA TV skews extremely old. Average fox news viewer is like 70. If some 80 year old dude still needs condom ads then he's doing REALLY well. I have noticed older people tend to tolerate violence pretty well, I mean they grew up in era of corporal punishment and nuns beating schoolchildren and the holocaust and all that, so "Fight Club" isn't really going to be a big deal. Aside from agitprop the "normal" TV viewer of boring prime time stuff is assumed to be at least a baby boomer aka basically retirement age. Its possible that in Germany non-blue-hairs watch TV and in that case non-blue hair commercials make sense.
I'm just trying to envision one of those stereotypical agitprop channels where the viewers are all retired senior citizens shouting at their TV about liberals and the ads are all for old people pills, suddenly having a condom ad just to get them all wound up and generate PR via the controversy itself ("Why the nerve, my johnson hasn't had action since the Johnson administration and those darn liberuls put this condom ad on my TV!")
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @05:35PM
Why would they need a condom? They'd just have their property get tubal ligation if it was still in child-bearing age.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @10:31AM
I would generally agree with your assessment in regard to violence, but when it comes to Germany this is way off, they have very strict censorship of violent video games as one example, a lot of movies broadcast on TV are also censored with violent scenes often cut out abruptly (try watching the German cut of Starship Troopers).