Mature furry imageboard e621 has apparently closed its doors:

Thanks to numerous threats to our host, false claims of illegal content, harassment and a few things that are much worse, e621 is being closed down permanently. It's been fun running it.

The closure is likely the result of allegations made earlier today that e621 hosted cartoon child pornography.

Update: All is impermanent. Varka (CEO of Bad Dragon) intends to take over the site.

A Dragon's Poison, a erotic work by Roland Giscard sold until recently on Lulu.com, has been withdrawn by the on-demand publisher due to 'obscenity'.

The author said that 30 digital downloads of the 164-page novel were sold.

According to Kamicheetah, several other artists have similar material on Lulu.

A new site, Watchtail, was recently launched by Nedded, offering a video streaming service to the furry art community.

As of press time the site hosted six active streams; two had ten or more viewers.

Want to drop by Fur Affinity without filling your screen – or your browser cache – with porn? Visit sfw.furaffinity.net instead! [Fauna Urbana]

Furries have surfaced on syndicated radio call-in show Loveline. [thanks AshMCairo]

The caller, "Cly" [spelling uncertain], said the community includes therians (who "believe that their spirits used to be animals, and thus they keep acting like animals"), "normal" furries ("people who pick an animal who they really like and act like it") and fursuiters. She claimed to be all three.

SoFurry is running an adult short story contest. The topic is endangered animals — specifically, tigers, rhinos and giant pandas.

Entries must prominently feature at least one of the selected species in a sexual situation, and preferably all three.

One story of roughly 2500 to 10,000 words may be entered per person; it must be submitted to the site with the keyword EnSpContest by March 20. The winner will receive a box of Austrian "Mirabell Mozardkugel" (chocolate and marzipan balls) from site admin Toumal.

The site previously ran a Valentine's Day competition, accepting tame and adult artwork in black, white, and red. The winning work was by Cyran.

Best Magazine nominee Softpaw #4 would be excluded today [Papaya Kitty]

Nominations have begun for the 2009 Ursa Major Awards, furry fandom's popular award for excellence in published works. But new rules intended to safeguard the reputation of the Awards and its sponsoring events will exclude works which won nomination in previous years.

While nominees and winners will still be chosen by popular vote, the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association intends to block material they deem "obscene, libelous, or otherwise detrimental to the integrity and good standing of the Ursa Major Awards and the anthropomorphics fandom."

Their definition includes "works of a predominantly sexual nature, or which include explicit sexual situations involving characters which may be underage or non-anthropomorphic animals."

Softpaw #2, the previous edition of Softpaw Magazine, was banned from Eurofurence over similar concerns.

Further Confusion's governing organization Anthropomorphic Arts and Education (AAE) has banned the sale of erotic cub fanzine Softpaw Magazine at this year's event, making it the second major convention to ban the work.^[1]

The decision was based on a rule banning "[depictions of] minor[s] engaging in sexually explicit conduct", which AAE added due to the prosecution of Dwight Whorley for receiving lolicon over the Internet.^[2] Softpaw and its supporters maintain that, as furries are not humans but anthropomorphic animals, laws covering the sexual relation of humans do not apply.^[3][4][5]

Some assumed AAE's decision was made partly on moral grounds, while others thought they were making a definitive statement about the legality of Softpaw and similar works.^[5] The board later posted a statement denying both of these, emphasizing that the risk and consequences of legal action - regardless of its success - were the sole reason for their ban.^[6]

Softpaw #2: banned at Eurofurence

Eurofurence chair Cheetah has announced a ban on the sale or distribution of the erotic cub publication Softpaw Magazine at this September's convention. The announcement came just an hour after Portugese comic book artist and Softpaw contributor Dktorzi announced his intent to act as a dealer of the magazine.^[1][2] German furry artist Inuki was given a similar message.^[3]

Cheetah noted that the decision was based on four factors: the legal "gray area" surrounding cub pornography in Germany, the "rather diastrous_[sic] conflicts within the fandom" (a reference to incidents at Fur Affinity and elsewhere), the board's wish to maintain a good reputation with the hotel and its staff, and a pre-existing ban on cub pornography in the art show. He stated that the board's decision "is final, and we will not discuss it."

The architects of quality-controlled all-ages furry art site ArtSpots have licensed the site's source code to Inaki, who is launching a separate site, Yiffit, dedicated to "high quality adult anthropomorphic animal artwork."^[1]

Another site, Furverts, will hold mature furry art of all quality levels.^[2] Cub art, and works centering around infantilism, excessive gore, scat and snuff will not be permitted on either site.^[3]

Adult subscription website Club Stripes has announced the launch of their first collaborative graphic novel publication, titled The Best of Club Stripes: Private Exhibition. The 96 page, full-color book is tentatively scheduled for mass-market purchase at the beginning of July.^[1]

The recommended retail price is $24.95, for which readers are promised "about 30 pages of comics, more than 150 pictures." Pre-orders are being accepted through the end of June for $20, including shipping.