What service does Amazon actually provide, anyway?

On advice from a few of you, I decided to change DARKSIDE's category at Amazon from Fantasy/Contemporary to Fantasy/Paranormal. Of course, by doing so it had to go under Amazon's review process again—which usually takes about a day.

Last night I received an email from Amazon to the effect that, while reviewing my submission, they found that DARKSIDE was "widely available on the web." In order to protect my copyright (kind of ironic coming from them, considering DARKSIDE's past history with Amazon) they are requesting I provide them with the URLs for all websites where DARKSIDE is published, and an explanation as to why the content is available online. If the books are considered in the public domain, they want proof/justification for that, too.

If they're not happy with my reply, my book "will not be made available for sale."

So let me get this straight. They found that DARKSIDE is being offered for free (I allowed Obooko to offer Darkside as a .pdf download, and it can be read online on my website) and of course there's a gazillion pirated sites. And if I can't justify this to them, they're not going to offer it for sale?

Is Amazon my distributor, or publisher? DARKSIDE is also available through Smashwords (and therefore in other eBook formats—sony, apple, kobo, etc.) at the same price that it's sold for at Amazon for their e-reader format. As far as I'm concerned, Amazon has the right to distribute DARKSIDE as a Kindle eBook ONLY, and at our agreed upon price. DARKSIDE sells for .99 cents, which means Amazon takes 70% of the profit simply for hosting it on their site. And they're complaining?

Copyright infringement is none of their business, unless they're the one's doing the infringing.

Anyway, no idea how this is going to go, but knowing Amazon DARKSIDE may not be for sale on their site for much longer.