Amazon has a book piracy problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#11

Post by eikenberry » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

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.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#12

Post by WoodenChair » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

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 unfair!

Here's my original Tweet thread about it: https://twitter.com/davekopec/status/1302578592552022018

Here's the Hacker News discussion about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24399301

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#13

Post by Mixtape » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

Slightly off-topic, but I've recently heard from some corners of the collecting world that this is a major issue for video game resellers on Amazon (and other platforms) as well. People regularly receive flash carts with stuck-on labels (i.e. stolen trademarks) on them and a pirated ROM running on counterfeited hardware. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible in some cases to identify a well-crafted fake from a genuine copy before purchase, and the burden is thus placed on Amazon to take action against sellers of the products. Given that the loss of one consumer in a relatively niche yet very competitive market will not deal significant damage to Amazon's overall profits, (and that Amazon can feasibly shift blame towards the seller,) the issue persists.

All of this is to say that the idea of pirated books proliferating on Amazon is entirely feasible if electronic devices can be so successfully faked. However, what's not lost on me is the irony of Amazon, a marketplace whose initial success was anchored by trust in its ability to deliver books, falling victim to such schemes in this specific market space.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#14

Post by iasay » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

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.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#15

Post by iasay » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #10

iasay wrote: post #3

If they got rid of marketplace sellers and actually got control over their supply chain then they might actually go up in people's opinion. However Amazon and AWS isn't about doing a good job, it's about doing a mediocre job and making everyone happy though apologies. And that's why I'm still using them. They are a good balance.

What does aws have to do with this article, piracy, or the retail side of Amazon

The same soulless automation running the show.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#16

Post by randcraw » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:46 PM UTC

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.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#17

Post by ilrwbwrkhv » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:47 PM UTC

I just cancelled prime this year. It has reached a point where I just directly shop from AliExpress when required or I buy from local stores.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#18

Post by not2b » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

Can't the ripped off authors and publishers sue Amazon for big money for this? Or maybe band together and bring a class action suit?

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#19

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

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 ability to talk to a real person on the other end quickly.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#20

Post by hourago » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

iasay wrote: post #15

themitigating wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does aws have to do with this article, piracy, or the retail side of Amazon

The same soulless automation running the show.

That is going to be the fight of the next generation. Inappropriate videos on YouTube for kids, extremist propaganda in Facebook or fake products in Amazon all have that soulless automation as main culprit. (Let's not talk about Roblox)

Cost goes against resilience and quality. You can automate things to a limit until everything breaks down.