Seriously, Amazon?
My book, Someone To Cherish, has been stolen. The whole thing was copied and pasted and republished as Bad Luck Love's [sic] Me.
This isn't the first time I've heard about plagiarized material showing up for sale on Amazon. The last time I saw it, though, the books had been taken from Literotica. This time the books are taken directly from Amazon. So why didn't the stolen manuscript trigger some kind of alert before it got published?
Lori Devoti spent a while this afternoon tracking down and finding the other authors who had books stolen by the people who took my book. Not hard--she found a few in less than an hour. So why the hell didn't Amazon? I contacted them hours ago. Why haven't they done anything yet--like maybe, answer my emails? Lots of people have pointed out that that "author" has stolen a bunch of books. Why hasn't Amazon taken down the books' buy buttons?
I suppose making people push that little button that says "this is my material and I hold the copyright" before they publish might save Amazon from legal responsibility. But shouldn't they do more than just provide a platform? They have plenty of cash to invest in systems that make sure they aren't housing thieves. Just a simple google-type search on their own site might do the trick and they'd catch plagiarists before they publish.
They ought to care enough about their reputation to take the same kind of time on each of these cases that Lori did.
UPDATE: Okay, the buy option is gone. Yay! (Now I expect a note saying "whoops, sorry" from Amazon any minute. Heh. Right.)
ANOTHER UPDATE: here's an article Karin Kallmaker put up on Facebook about the topic. T he line that caught me: "But while it appears that
Amazon could easily employ a filter to protect its authors' works, it
may be under no legal duty to do so."
Yeah, I figured legally they're fine. I'm hoping for an eventual PR nightmare--or at least a PR nuisance. That might make them do something. This isn't like most annoying pirate sites where they post our books free. It's worse than usual. Why?
1. these pirates are making money.
2. amazon could easily stop it if they gave a damn about the people who provide their LEGAL content.
This isn't the first time I've heard about plagiarized material showing up for sale on Amazon. The last time I saw it, though, the books had been taken from Literotica. This time the books are taken directly from Amazon. So why didn't the stolen manuscript trigger some kind of alert before it got published?
Lori Devoti spent a while this afternoon tracking down and finding the other authors who had books stolen by the people who took my book. Not hard--she found a few in less than an hour. So why the hell didn't Amazon? I contacted them hours ago. Why haven't they done anything yet--like maybe, answer my emails? Lots of people have pointed out that that "author" has stolen a bunch of books. Why hasn't Amazon taken down the books' buy buttons?
I suppose making people push that little button that says "this is my material and I hold the copyright" before they publish might save Amazon from legal responsibility. But shouldn't they do more than just provide a platform? They have plenty of cash to invest in systems that make sure they aren't housing thieves. Just a simple google-type search on their own site might do the trick and they'd catch plagiarists before they publish.
They ought to care enough about their reputation to take the same kind of time on each of these cases that Lori did.
UPDATE: Okay, the buy option is gone. Yay! (Now I expect a note saying "whoops, sorry" from Amazon any minute. Heh. Right.)
ANOTHER UPDATE: here's an article Karin Kallmaker put up on Facebook about the topic. T he line that caught me: "But while it appears that
Amazon could easily employ a filter to protect its authors' works, it
may be under no legal duty to do so."
Yeah, I figured legally they're fine. I'm hoping for an eventual PR nightmare--or at least a PR nuisance. That might make them do something. This isn't like most annoying pirate sites where they post our books free. It's worse than usual. Why?
1. these pirates are making money.
2. amazon could easily stop it if they gave a damn about the people who provide their LEGAL content.
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