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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

#161

Post by magicalist »

tornato7 wrote: post #29

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…

> Google indexing and republishing all of their work for free on Google Books

This isn't a thing that was ever offered, it was always full text search, get snippets of results.

> (finally resolved after a huge Class Action suit where the authors were awarded a few $$)

The two proposed class action settlements were rejected as overly advantageous to Google (probably for the best they were rejected, though it would have opened up orphaned works in a way that Congress will never ever bother to do).

Then the judge ruled that google books scanning and searching was fair use and dismissed the lawsuit, upheld by the second circuit. No one ever saw any money, few $$ or otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....

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

#163

Post by scrum-treats »

projectileboy wrote: post #26

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.

It really is an MLM. It's pretty crazy that it's been operating for this long without such visible degradation, until the last 2-2.5 years.

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

#164

Post by zen_1 »

chii wrote: post #149
VincentEvans wrote: post #128

Let me tell you how to buy a kindle book for my kid’s Kindle that is connected via a child account in “Amazon Household” to my Amazon account. (This opening sentence already signals how the rest of this will go). A child’s account can’t buy books - you have to do it for them. 1. I open Amazon app on my iphone and find the book - “This app does not support purchasing of this content”. 2. I open Kindle app on my iphone…

> Delightful experience. compare this with the piracy option: search for torrent or download link, click, wait for download to finish. Upload to device. Read and enjoy.

cough mobilism.org/libgen.is/irc channels/z-library cough

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

#165

Post by dragonwriter »

kelnos wrote: post #139
VincentEvans wrote: post #128

Let me tell you how to buy a kindle book for my kid’s Kindle that is connected via a child account in “Amazon Household” to my Amazon account. (This opening sentence already signals how the rest of this will go). A child’s account can’t buy books - you have to do it for them. 1. I open Amazon app on my iphone and find the book - “This app does not support purchasing of this content”. 2. I open Kindle app on my iphone…

I agree that this is ridiculous, but blame Apple and Google for wanting their 30% cut of digital goods; I think Amazon is actually right to refuse to play ball on this. Regardless, though, once you know how to do it, you only have to do two of those steps, which seems... fine?

> I agree that this is ridiculous, but blame Apple and Google for wanting their 30% cut of digital goods;

That only explains steps 1-2.

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

#166

Post by zen_1 »

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…

One of the few sentences more depressing (when relevant) than "Stallman was right" is "Ted Kaczynski had a point".

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

#167

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

dylan604 wrote: post #112
zebomon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It’s the delivery. I can often get something inconsequential for net cheaper, faster from Amazon. Local stock is usually next day. And I can often get stuff internationally cheaper and faster through Amazon than the real retailer.

You’d have to duplicate this to take them on.

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

#168

Post by __mharrison__ »

QuantumG wrote: post #81
__mharrison__ wrote: post #74

This is so annoying. I've written multiple books and seen many types of piracy. The most annoying is piracy that Amazon could prevent with the work of an intern. They've shown little interest in this. Authors have little pull because Amazon is the only player for book selling. (I know there are other places to sell books, I've used them. Better to focus on Amazon for passive sales.)

> The most annoying is piracy that Amazon could prevent with the work of an intern. Do tell. In the gigantic ocean that is Amazon's marketplace, what do you suppose a single intern could do that would not be immediately circumvented?

Check to see if the name of the person uploading the book matches the author.

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

#169

Post by dragonwriter »

neilv wrote: post #122
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.

We're already getting there. Maybe Amazon brands will at least be predictable, but the non-Amazon brands on Amazon will be increasingly counterfeits and noise. (A contributor to the current problem of eroding non-Amazon brands with counterfeits seems to be Amazon's commingling from different marketplace sellers of the "same ASIN". And the current mass-spam search DoS of random-name brands and near-identical products…

> Maybe Amazon brands will at least be predictable, but the non-Amazon brands on Amazon will be increasingly counterfeits and noise.

Of course, because that helps sell the Amazon brand goods.

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

#170

Post by scrum-treats »

barbazoo wrote: post #106

> Customer Obsession > Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

In the last 3 years it's been obsessing over how to better exploit customers. As a result, there's no innovative solutions happening, and whatever is being pushed is sloppily executed and filled with vulnerabilities. It is quite disheartening and unrewarding to experience, as no matter what you do (1, 2, 4, 6 pagers proposing interventions; escalations) it has no impact. People in power have made up their minds to break everything (whether they know it or not), and so it is.
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