Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I would rather see my books get pirated than this

janefriedman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 517 posts

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

#111

Post by theptip »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #52
bawolff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming they dont just have the same name but are intentionally impersonating you - sounds like fraud, false advertising or identity theft [ianal]

The example book just has the same name. It should be defensible; you can write under any name you want. Amazon itself is the entity attributing the book to the more famous Jane Friedman. This is a case where the "impersonator" appears to be legally fine and Amazon is on questionable ground.

> At the very least, if you look at my author profile on Amazon, these junk books don’t appear.

It sounds like maybe this is not happening? If they are just appearing under the search for “AuthorName” I am not sure there really is a problem with Amazon’s system.

IANAL, perhaps Amazon still has some liability if an author is using a fraudulent pen name for books they submit.

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

#112

Post by dylan604 »

zebomon wrote: post #102
labster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we’ll be swimming in garbage.

I really don't see how one follows the other without then in sequence, as the comment you replied to describes, value-based businesses emerge to fill the obvious gap and compete.

people still shop at Amazon, so I'm not too convinced in your argument

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

#113

Post by CamperBob2 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #69
nomat wrote: post #44

I think this is the future of computers for people. they will open their phone and say "hey siri get this book or computer or car" and the browser will show them a bunch of made up products generated by an AI and they'll get the product drop shipped from china and it'll be a shitty counterfeit just like the $5 256GB USB drives. But they won't know because when you look for reviews, the review websites will also be ge…

Is it not the case that AI is pretty good at detecting AI generated content?

It's not. One of the things you can train an AI to do is to generate output that isn't recognized by a given "AI detector."

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

#114

Post by dylan604 »

pixl97 wrote: post #97
opportune wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, until someone creates a website that just ships the products they say they have, and people type in the URL for the site directly and shop there? If online shopping were truly such a terribly scammy UX in 100% of cases people would stop using it or shift to shopping from trusted sellers who recognize the tremendous amount of value they can capture by not scamming people.

Why be a billionaire when you can be a trillionare? Greed will ruin everything.

i see your Tres Comas and raise you Quatro Comas

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

#115

Post by opportune »

pixl97 wrote: post #97
opportune wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, until someone creates a website that just ships the products they say they have, and people type in the URL for the site directly and shop there? If online shopping were truly such a terribly scammy UX in 100% of cases people would stop using it or shift to shopping from trusted sellers who recognize the tremendous amount of value they can capture by not scamming people.

Why be a billionaire when you can be a trillionare? Greed will ruin everything.

If incumbents are delivering a terrible product because they’re chasing 4 commas I will happily settle for 3 commas to provide a basic “shopping but on the internet” experience people actually want to use.

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

#116

Post by ianburrell »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #84
opportune wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, until someone creates a website that just ships the products they say they have, and people type in the URL for the site directly and shop there? If online shopping were truly such a terribly scammy UX in 100% of cases people would stop using it or shift to shopping from trusted sellers who recognize the tremendous amount of value they can capture by not scamming people.

I think AI is going to make it harder to separate the signal from the noise, though. We’re already seeing this play out with sites like Amazon that are just full of cheap junk that’s blatantly ripped off and undercut in price, or Google as people are complaining about the quality of search results.

Notice that niche shopping sites don’t have reviews. Bigger sites have reviews but they don’t get gamed. Without affiliates or listing products like Amazon, there is no way for the spammers to make money.

I’m surprised that places like Walmart or Target haven’t gotten burned by cross listings. They could drop the program and advertise as alternative to Amazon. If Amazon had “sold by Amazon” filter, it would be a lot more usable.

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

#117

Post by dylan604 »

userbinator wrote: post #98
spicyusername wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people have a lower tolerance for this than that, and will just go back to relying on personal recommendations and other reliable forms of curation.

Unfortunately, "personal recommendations" seems to mean "influencers" these days.

that's the part that I love love love. society has gotten to this ridiculous follower stage that people seem to think it is a personal connection. maybe i've just spent too much time too close to the ad agency world to see how nasty they are, but anytime i see some random person on the internet that i do not personally know recommending anything, i immediately assume they are paid for that "recommendation". too much "inside baseball" to know that nothing you see in an ad is real even if you don't consciously recognize the fact what you are looking at is an ad.

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

#118

Post by andrei_says_ »

labster wrote: post #94
opportune wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, until someone creates a website that just ships the products they say they have, and people type in the URL for the site directly and shop there? If online shopping were truly such a terribly scammy UX in 100% of cases people would stop using it or shift to shopping from trusted sellers who recognize the tremendous amount of value they can capture by not scamming people.

We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we’ll be swimming in garbage.

We swim in garbage already (looking at amazon) but bhphoto and sweetwater still exist.

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

#119

Post by UtopiaPunk »

soerxpso wrote: post #104
labster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we’ll be swimming in garbage.

This assumes that the only ways people have to find companies are search engines and other mediums that are prone to AI takeover. If everyone starts to realize that most of the surface internet is garbage, they would start communicating with humans they know about which places are not garbage. It was possible to find good businesses to interact with before Google existed. Obviously in a world where every online retai…

That's how people find the good torrent spots, so topical.

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

#120

Post by stOneskull »

mr_toad wrote: post #30
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

amazon or goodreads or some other body could have a new type of system. if you want to publish a book using the same name as someone else, then they make it a special case. like a default 'no'. then you either change your name a bit or prove it's your name. something like that.
Post reply on HN