Amazon.com and Animal Fighting: Legal Arguments

Amazon.com pretends that free speech is the issue with the two cockfighting magazines they sell, The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior, but their arguments just don't fly. Their protestations about the First Amendment are as flimsy as chicken feathers. Read why:

Not Merely about Animal Fighting

These magazines are not merely about or advocating animal fighting—if they were, The HSUS would not file suit. Rather, they promote actual, specific upcoming animal fights, and also function as catalogs with hundreds of advertisements for fighting birds and dogs, knives strapped to birds' legs for fighting, and drugs advertised to keep injured animals fighting longer.

The animals and weapons advertised are illegal to buy and sell. The Supreme Court has held numerous times—and it’s just basic common sense—that there is no First Amendment protection for speech that solicits a crime by proposing an illegal transaction.

Promoting Animal Fighting

Not only do these ads propose criminal transactions, but the magazines violate broadly-worded federal laws prohibiting mailings that promote or "in any other manner" further animal fighting. As a matter of common sense, a publication that advertises upcoming animal fights, features hundreds of criminal solicitations for the unlawful purchase of fighting animals and paraphernalia, and lists fight winners so the breeders can sell those animals for a higher price, "promotes" or "furthers" animal fighting. In the past year alone, more than 90 percent of the advertisements—nearly 1,600 pages' worth—propose illegal transactions.

Pipeline to Animal Fighters

Amazon is the sole retailer of subscriptions to the animal fighting magazines, and the only way animal fighters can obtain subscriptions over the Internet. Amazon also actively markets the subscriptions with paid advertisements on popular websites such as Google.com and Yahoo! Shopping. These magazines are routinely in the top 3 percent of all of the magazine titles Amazon sells. In effect, Amazon is the marketing agent for the magazines.

Posted June 6, 2007

Related Links

Amazon.com and Animal Fighting

Amazon.com and Animal Fighting

Amazon.com and Animal Fighting: A Timeline

HSUS Sues Amazon.com over Animal Fighting Videos and Magazines

Amazon.com Faces Lawsuit for Illegal Cockfighting Magazines