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I would rather see my books get pirated than this

janefriedman.com

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Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#21

Post by OJFord »

resolutebat wrote: post #9
macspoofing wrote: post #4

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…

Unlike copyright, (registered) trademarks don't exist by default, they have to be registered, defended vigorously and regularly renewed. So you would first have to explicitly register your name as a trademark, and that's going to be quite challenging if you have a common name like "Jane Friedman". That said, a quick poke at TESS shows a bunch of trademarks containing Friedman, including some personal names (Alan, Riv…

In the UK & US at least that's not true, there are de facto (unregistered) and (offering more protection) registered trademarks.

In the UK at least if you could show your name gave it some weight, and that you'd suffered some financial harm as a result of its use, then you'd have a case without it being registered.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#22

Post by tjpnz »

david422 wrote: post #20
tjpnz wrote: post #19

Who on earth would buy a book written by ChatGPT from Amazon? Unless they thought they weren't.

I went looking for childrens books. Some titles looked good. But if you view the preview .... complete trash. Must cost nothing to upload, and you might get some suckers that don't realize.

>you might get some suckers that don't realize.

Exactly my thought. There's an element of fraud here.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#23

Post by rdiddly »

crtified wrote: post #12

It's interesting as a lifetime low socioeconomic person, for whom (almost) the entire modern paradigm of social media and major web corporations are, and always have been, both socially and financially unaffordable. I watch on from the outside, researching, reading and watching as I please (and yes, that means I am some kind of perma-pirate, I guess*), and all this kind of crap - waves hand in general direction of FA…

Having been more or less "over it" from very early on, I can definitely see that tempest-in-a-teacup factor, not to mention feel the hollowness of all the articles about how "we" live "our whole lives" online and that's why this or that is sooo important. Close the laptop and it all goes away, in some respect. Though there are cracks in it... for example it becomes a real problem when it's harder to get your local government's attention by engaging their own communication protocols than it is hail them or shame them on Twitter... which requires entering into relationships with at least 2 maybe 3 private companies that maybe I don't want relationships with, or have the money to do so. And of course there's the general and widespread degradation of decorum and social cohesion, though this too is mostly confined to online. It's when people start to have the nerve to act like that in public, in person, that it, again, becomes a real problem.

Already nobody was in charge, but now there's really nobody in charge.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#24

Post by tornato7 »

colechristensen wrote: post #8
macspoofing wrote: post #4

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…

>Out of curiosity, how do intellectual property laws handle someone publishing a work under someone else's name? Is that a trademark violation? I assume in the same way they handle somebody else who actually has the same name publishing books... they do nothing. Unless perhaps they are associating themselves with you "By the author of Such and Such "

If you "Look Inside" the offending books on Amazon you can see they have extensive "About the Author" page describing Jane Friedman - so it would be difficult to argue that the books are not trying to trick people into believing it's Jane.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#25

Post by imgabe »

macspoofing wrote: post #4

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…

It's not trademark, but you can sue someone for fraudulently using your name and likeness, it varies by state in the US.

Of course the actual entity posting the fraudulent books are probably overseas somewhere and will disappear if anyone tries to contact them. Maybe if it happens to enough people a class-action lawsuit against Amazon would force them to do some due diligence when listing a book to make sure that the author is actually who they claim to be.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#26

Post by projectileboy »

Haha… Amazon, you say? You mean the large money laundering operation, putting third party counterfeit goods in the same warehouse bins as legitimate goods from legitimate suppliers, so that as a consumer you never know if you’re going to get counterfeit goods? Yes, that’s the Amazon we know and love.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#27

Post by system2 »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #14

Can you actually make real money at this? As it seems trivial to generate tons of books on niche topics if it is.

Maybe not for an engineer from silicon valley. For a third world country guy with no job, even $50 a month would mean survival.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#28

Post by resolutebat »

OJFord wrote: post #21
resolutebat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike copyright, (registered) trademarks don't exist by default, they have to be registered, defended vigorously and regularly renewed. So you would first have to explicitly register your name as a trademark, and that's going to be quite challenging if you have a common name like "Jane Friedman". That said, a quick poke at TESS shows a bunch of trademarks containing Friedman, including some personal names (Alan, Riv…

In the UK & US at least that's not true, there are de facto (unregistered) and (offering more protection) registered trademarks. In the UK at least if you could show your name gave it some weight, and that you'd suffered some financial harm as a result of its use, then you'd have a case without it being registered.

Yes, common law trademarks are a legal concept, but the article features Amazon telling the author to go pound sand unless they have the paperwork to back up a registered trademark.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#29

Post by tornato7 »

Just some of the problems authors already faced online (I'm related to one):

- Google indexing and republishing all of their work for free on Google Books (finally resolved after a huge Class Action suit where the authors were awarded a few $$)

- List your book on Amazon for $20 and a "third party" reseller will immediately hijack your listing with a poorly printed knockoff copy for $19

- Widespread piracy of Kindle and other e-Books

- Not being paid fairly from programs like Amazon's Kindle Unlimited

Now AI-generated content makes these problems considerably worse. It's very difficult to make money writing books these days.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#30

Post by mr_toad »

macspoofing wrote: post #4

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…

> Out of curiosity, how do intellectual property laws handle someone publishing a work under someone else's name?

Depends on jurisdiction. There is a a lot of case law (precedent), rather than statute, and it’s up to the infringed party to make a case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

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