Amazon has a book piracy problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#121

Post by saurik » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 11:41 PM UTC

fernly wrote: post #62

This is crazy when you think that if you upload a YT video with 10 seconds of a Beatles song in it, the YT copyright engine will be on you in minutes, "demonetizing" your vid. YT can spot copyrighted audio and punish it automatically, while Amazon can't recognize a whole book including covers as a violation.

You are legally allowed to buy a book and resell it. If you look, many of the legitimate offers for books on Amazon that are "from the long tail" of content are coming the inventory of small book stores, both used and new. The issue is not that third parties are selling a book at all but that the book they are shipping is a third-party low-quality re-print of the book in question instead of an official copy, something you wouldn't know until you receive the book.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#122

Post by tedmiston » Sun, Jul 10, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #107

elcapitan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yea, Amazon is absolutely terrible as a book seller. It's virtually impossible at times to distinguish between certain editions. The other day, I found an error in that clicking on a paperback edition took me to a completely different book. There's nowhere in the entire page to report that as wrong. And I have also found it increasingly hard to find books via their search. I have even had a few cases of the exact tit…

> The other day, I found an error in that clicking on a paperback edition took me to a completely different book.

I also just found this except in the opposite direction. I wanted an ebook version of a paperback book. The publisher has paper and electronic versions of all of their books, but somehow clicking Kindle version of Book A is linked to a Kindle version of Book B... and apparently a Kindle version of Book A just isn't available on Amazon.

I ended up buying the ebook from the publisher's site directly, which came in mobi, epub, and pdf formats. I thought "oh, I'll just drop this into the Kindle app so my notes and highlights will sync across devices". I was shocked to discover that's not even really possible with a third party purchased ebook. Eventually I gave up on that and just used the PDF edition and made notes in highlights in Preview after the Kindle macOS app and Kindle iOS apps lost all of my notes and highlights trying to sync twice.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#123

Post by m463 » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 2:16 AM UTC

fencepost wrote: post #68

m463 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Another app, camscanner plus purchased by tencent basically did the same thing. I've actually shifted to just using Microsoft's Office Lens for scanning - I'd purchased the paid versions of multiple scanning apps and about 6-7 years ago I looked and every one of them seemed to be owned by a company in Russia. I wasn't real comfortable with that, so switched over to Microsoft. It may be a faceless megacorp, but I stil…

At some point, apple added document scanning to the notes app.

It recognizes the document, finds the edges and makes a .pdf file.

It actually kind of sucks compared to the other apps, and notes will upload to the cloud if you don't prevent it, but it can be local and not china.

Re: Amazon has a book piracy problem

#124

Post by m463 » Wed, Jul 13, 2022, 2:17 AM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #88

nikanj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My general feeling is that commerce has jumped the shark. You can make so much more money with scamming, the honest businesses are few and far apart. And nigh impossible to identify. It doesn't feel like a platform problem, more of a societal fabric unraveling.

If there's no enforcement of anti-fraud laws or consumer protections, why not scam people? As you said, it's more profitable than legitimate business. We live in the golden age of fraud.

(even the name "consumer" is a pretty terrible choice of words that doesn't connote respect)