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Amazon has a book piracy problem

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Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#21

Post by diamondap »

elcapitan wrote: post #4
codeslave13 wrote: post #2

Amazon has a piracy/counterfeit problem. And has for a very long time. I have basically stopped buying there as much as possible. My current trend is to use them as a search engine then got to the companies site. At this point you might as well shop alibaba as thats where half the crap is from anyway.

With books, Amazon has become the opposite of a search engine for me. I have to use external resources to actually find the right titles, to enter them 1:1 into Amazon search to get to the books. Context based discovery has become next to impossible (which I used it before a lot for). Something must have changed in their indexing algorithm a while ago. Also many results are flooded with garbage, like some ridiculous…

Amazon kind of gave up on discovery, at least for books, when they realized they could make more money running ads. I sell books on Amazon. Years ago, their book pages had two carousels of "similar titles" on each book detail page. Similar titles were selected by some pretty helpful algorithms based on what purchasers of the current title had also purchased, as well as some other secret sauce.

At the time, ads weren't very prominent, and they were profitable for authors. I could buy them for 5 cents a click and even if only one in fifty clicks resulted in a purchase, I made money.

Now, most of the algorithmic recommendations are gone, and for many ads, Amazon suggests bids of $2.50 or more per click. Those clicks bring in money whether Amazon makes a sale or not.

To some extent, they've given up on matching customers to the best or most suitable products. Why should they work that hard if ads are more profitable?

They've also had problems with piracy and counterfeits, as mentioned in this article. I heard a radio interview with a Target executive a couple years ago where a journalist said, "Amazon is underpricing you on everything. How do you plan to stay in business?"

She said, "We vet every product on our shelves. We know who makes it and where, whether it's legit, and whether it contains lead paint and parts kids can choke on. Try to find that info on Amazon."

The reporter didn't seem too impressed at the time, but the Target woman clearly saw where things were going. As the quality, authenticity, and reliability of Amazon's merchandise has declined, people are starting to notice.

I'm not sure this is a problem they will ever have the will to fix. While they break even or lose money on genuine goods they have to ship for free, profits from third party sellers and Chinese drop shippers keep the retail operation afloat.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#22

Post by [deleted] »

randcraw wrote: post #16
codeslave13 wrote: post #2

Amazon has a piracy/counterfeit problem. And has for a very long time. I have basically stopped buying there as much as possible. My current trend is to use them as a search engine then got to the companies site. At this point you might as well shop alibaba as thats where half the crap is from anyway.

A better search engine (esp for used books) is BookFinder: https://bookfinder.com . Between it and Goodreads, which has better ratings anyway, you can avoid Amazon entirely.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#24

Post by simcop2387 »

randcraw wrote: post #16
codeslave13 wrote: post #2

Amazon has a piracy/counterfeit problem. And has for a very long time. I have basically stopped buying there as much as possible. My current trend is to use them as a search engine then got to the companies site. At this point you might as well shop alibaba as thats where half the crap is from anyway.

A better search engine (esp for used books) is BookFinder: https://bookfinder.com . Between it and Goodreads, which has better ratings anyway, you can avoid Amazon entirely.

That's not avoiding them entirely, but it does avoid their store front for discovery. GoodReads is owned wholly by Amazon.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#25

Post by ptero »

eikenberry wrote: post #11

This is what copyright was actually for... Publishers would put out a book, it'd get popular then cut-rate copies would swamp the market. Copyright was done to protect the publisher from this sort of abuse (and secondarily the author, as the publisher was their only means of reaching an audience). This should be the top (and only IMO) priority of CC enforcement instead of going after sci-hub and the like.

Originally. But then publishers got greedy ("greed is forever") and instead of a relatively short term of protection before becoming public domain we now have stupid multi-decade restrictions. Those prevent us from printing good out of print books and do not give any benefit to either publisher or the author.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#26

Post by m463 »

V__ wrote: post #8

Amazon has shown time and time again that they don't care. They don't care about fake reviews, counterfeit products, cheap Chinese crap, their workforce, or anything really as long as customers keep on buying.

I wonder if they are jumping the shark?

I intensely dislike the paid search results or sponsored recommendations. The nonsense-name brands that are either chinese or secretly amazon that prevent brand names from showing up (and many good brands ship counterfeits). The fake reviews. The popup "extended warranty" screens where if you close the tab/window... the item doesn't make it to your shopping basket.

I remember when I had an iphone, and a few years ago when apple did not prevent abuse I just stopped installing apps. The app market had jumped the shark and become a cesspool.

Nice apps I liked were bought and monetized in unethical ways, and apple didn't care.

For example, I had an app called gas cubby, which let me locally - on the phone - keep track of all my vehicles. I could enter detailed information about each car such as year, make, model, vin, insurance policy, gas purchases, oil changes and the like. It would tell you gas mileage and remind you of upcoming maintenance.

One day, the app was updated and all my local data was uploaded to the cloud!

Another app, camscanner plus purchased by tencent basically did the same thing.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#27

Post by clumsysmurf »

WoodenChair wrote: post #12

I'm also a Manning author and this also happened to me a couple years ago. Amazon was allowing a counterfeit Kindle edition of Classic Computer Science Problems in Python to pose as legitimate on my own book's page! Only emailing Jeff got a solution. Manning seemed powerless to solve the problem themselves. I still have some bad reviews as a result of that counterfeit Kindle edition that plague my book page. Totally…

I can understand how physical copies of counterfeit books get co-mingled with legit inventory, whether they are printed from PDF or "re-covered" from destroyed copies ... but how does one simply upload a counterfeit Kindle edition at all?

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#28

Post by HarryHirsch »

iasay wrote: post #14
codeslave13 wrote: post #2

Amazon has a piracy/counterfeit problem. And has for a very long time. I have basically stopped buying there as much as possible. My current trend is to use them as a search engine then got to the companies site. At this point you might as well shop alibaba as thats where half the crap is from anyway.

I do similar. I use Amazon to find the ISBN number of the book I want then search for it on ebay and buy the cheapest second hand copy.

Besides, on Ebay you usually get a photograph of the actual book or the seller is a known quantity. No such luck with Amazon.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#29

Post by dhc02 »

iasay wrote: post #14
codeslave13 wrote: post #2

Amazon has a piracy/counterfeit problem. And has for a very long time. I have basically stopped buying there as much as possible. My current trend is to use them as a search engine then got to the companies site. At this point you might as well shop alibaba as thats where half the crap is from anyway.

I do similar. I use Amazon to find the ISBN number of the book I want then search for it on ebay and buy the cheapest second hand copy.

You can also go to bookshop.org, buy the book there (usually for about the same price as Amazon), and most of the profit goes to a local bookstore (which you can choose) instead of a big search engine with warehouses.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#30

Post by dhc02 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #19

Nowadays I do what François recommends in his tweet. Go to our local bookstore and order from there. The extent to which Amazon enables this kind of behavior and presumably also profits from it and the extent to which they ignore the problem altogether shouldn't be supported. Speaks to a larger problem as well, the excuses platforms make to not do due diligence when it comes to what is being sold and the lack of abil…

You can also choose your favorite local bookstore on bookshop.org and order from there.
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