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Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

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Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#151

Post by Chaebixi »

ajross wrote: post #131
6stringmerc wrote: post #30

As a "Content Creator" and frequent advocate for U.S. Copyright Reform, this is one of the few instances where I think the full willful infringement penalty is absolutely justified. There's only a paper thin "Well they didn't inspect every book!" defense, which immediately falls apart when Amazon is making money by way of the transactions and doing market harm to the actual Copyright holder. It's not "incidental" inf…

> I think the full willful infringement penalty is absolutely justified Out of curiousity: how much is that? How much should Amazon pay? Would you support the same penalty if your local bookseller was found to have purchased a batch of counterfeits? You realize that happens all the time in retail, right? Many smaller retailers have little to no ability to control their supply chain in the way you're demanding from Am…

> Would you support the same penalty if your local bookseller was found to have purchased a batch of counterfeits?

The difference is that Amazon a sophisticated, knowledgeable seller with a lot of smart people who undoubtedly understand the problem and how to solve it quickly (eliminate co-mingled inventory). I would say a local bookseller is likely to be much less sophisticated when it comes to counterfeit products and how they enter the supply chain.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#152

Post by jessaustin »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #143
jessaustin wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the same process in which Amazon has sold counterfeit NoStarch books, Amazon could also sell counterfeit "Basics" products. At this point, we're pretty sure it has something to do with commingling...

Why would Amazon let anyone sell an Amazon Basics product? It's not a "Basics" category, it's the "Amazon Basics" brand. Nobody else could produce those.

Hey man, sometimes the system just does what you tell it to do, rather than what it should have known you meant. b^)

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#153

Post by fapjacks »

HoppedUpMenace wrote: post #86
spatulon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of interest, what torch did you end up buying?

J5 Hyper V Tactical Flashlight. Was really bright as advertised. No complaints but its hard for anyone to understand how bright a flashlight is until you actually use it, but youtube videos definitely help and so do legit reviews.

These specific flashlights can be bought from AliExpress for two or three dollars a piece. I totally agree that they're a great light, just don't pay more than a couple bucks for one. I bought a pack of five for ten dollars.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#154

Post by herojc »

revelation wrote: post #109

I have no idea how Amazon keeps getting away with selling counterfeit and plain unsafe (anything cheap chinese plugged into a socket) products. No judge would accept that somehow a 3rd party is to blame when 1) I'm paying Amazon, 2) Amazon delivers the item from an Amazon warehouse and 3) Amazon takes the return and reimburses me. At no point in this transaction is a 3rd party involved. Clearly they should be liable…

Well inventory Amazon retail imports can be commingled with 3rd party inventory. So just because you bought from Amazon doesn't necessarily mean that it was inbounded by Amazon. It's not an excuse for Amazon, but commingling is a double edged sword and the bad part of it is an extremely difficult problem to solve, yet the benefits are too strong for them to consider turning it off.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#155

Post by 55555 »

Be very careful buying translated books on Amazon. I was sent a copy of a Mark Twain book that was translated into Thai _using Google translate_ and thus entirely unreadable.

Amazon is a disaster these days. It's impossible to choose what to buy because there's four dozen identical private label products with nothing but fake reviews for every possible product niche.

It's like that scene from Hurt Locker but you're in the world's biggest grocery store aisle. It's a miserable shopping experience.

Edit: I did not get my money back.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#156

Post by danjoc »

jessaustin wrote: post #126
danjoc wrote: post #87

Ohh, I get it now. HN hates Amazon. I wasn't aware of that. It's not Google defenders or Python for Kids people clicking down. It's people who have a visceral hate for Amazon. I knew HN basically hated Apple, but this is news to me. Thanks for the clarification guys :)

HN hates Apple ? Whatever drugs you're on, it might be time to cut back...

It's subtle. It manifests like Stockholm syndrome really. "I used to love Apple, but this touchbar thing is just a gimmick!" up votes. "Apple dropped everything but USB-C ports? Dongle$ are u$!" more upvotes. "Why did Apple make the red phone with a white frame, so ugly! It should have been $other_color" more up votes.

You can't say "Razer is way better than Apple" though, or they jump on the defense. They probably never used a Razer or even heard of them, but they know it can't be better than the laptop they paid $3000 to get. There's clearly an undercurrent of discontent there, but they haven't been led to greener pastures by great marketing yet.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#157

Post by ghaff »

dlubarov wrote: post #96
BubbleFett wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall an article that exposed Kindle authors who plagiarized old trade paperback romance novels and sold them for a profit, which might be why Kindle Direct Publishing does check content.

There's nothing wrong with selling public domain works for profit in general. (KDP has some restrictions - https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2OHLJURFVK57Q ) Were those authors pretending they were original works?

That actually makes sense although, in practice, it's still a bit of a mess. They basically don't want a bunch of 25 cent versions of public domain books clogging up the site in various forms of unreadability that don't add anything to the free versions.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#158

Post by 55555 »

draw_down wrote: post #12

What is going on over there? They let people sell the crappiest stuff on their site these days. Plus at least in my experience they seem to have serious logistical issues, literally the last 3 or 4 items I've purchased on Amazon have not actually shipped to me.

> They let people sell the crappiest stuff on their site these days.

They literally and purposely have almost zero barrier to entry. Heck perhaps they have a negative barrier to entry as they will literally loan you money to help cover inventory costs.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#159

Post by dalfonso »

cookiecaper wrote: post #116
mmagin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa. So when I individually choose to get a product from a particular FBA seller on Amazon, it is not necessarily the one that originated from that seller?

It depends on the seller. Sellers can opt-out of commingled inventory, but it incurs additional labeling/packaging costs for them. If they've done this, then you're getting the physical item they've sent in to FBA. If they haven't, then you may get the physical item they sent in, or you may get some other item that someone else sent in under the same identifier. As far as I know, there is no way to know whether an FB…

It's not 100% guaranteed, but if you receive a product and the barcode has been covered with a sticker with a code starting with X e.g. X123456879, then it's most likely from that specific seller.

Re: Sellers printing counterfeit books and selling under Amazon's brand

#160

Post by [deleted] »

Marazan wrote: post #107
lsaferite wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to have more detail than the tweet to understand the specifics. If they are saying Amazon is producing and selling these themselves, then that's a big deal. If they got a shipment of them that are counterfeit and are selling those, then it's a slightly less big deal IMHO, but still a serious problem.

Yes, Amazon is producing and selling these. That is what makes this so outrageous.

[deleted]
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