Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
To repeat a post I've made in another forum, Elfwreck, how could Amazon do that?
|
I said "Amazon should tell its customers why the books were pulled," not "Amazon should make sure all its books are legit before selling." But I do have suggestions about both.
1) When a book is pulled for copyright infringement (or potential copyright infringement, because I don't think any actual suits have been filed in any of these cases), inform customers, "this ebook has been pulled from our library because we have received legal notification that it is not permitted to be offered for sale. It has been pulled from individual Kindles to avoid making you complicit in a copyright infringement lawsuit."
Personally, I think the likelihood that individual buyers are liable is low; I think that copyright infringement works differently from theft laws, and distribution is illegal but reception is not. However, Amazon's lawyers could think differently. In any case, they should inform customers that the books were pulled
to avoid lawsuits, not because Amazon made a better business deal with someone else, or the files were damaged, or whatever else customers might think when they get Amazon's vague notifications.
2) Stop allowing individual uploads of titles without a more stringent confirmation process, possibly involving signed-and-notarized documents, not a webclick that says "yeah, I have the right to distribute this text." Require at least as much ID and legal liability statements as physical publishers demand before publication. Amazon is not Scribd; they shouldn't accept "by clicking on this button, I promise I'm not breaking any laws. Signed,
SuperPirate007@haxx0rz.com."
3) Hire someone, or a small pack of someones, to assemble a list of popular classics that aren't in the public domain in the US, and track down the copyright owner for each of those, so they know if they become available as legit ebooks. This could be as small as ~500 titles, or as big as they care to allocate resources for.
This part takes resources on their part--time and money both. But Amazon's entered the publishing industry, and they should be allocating resources towards "what do customers want; what will they pay for; what already exists in the marketplace elsewhere?" Assembling a list of books that don't yet exist as ebooks, but sell very well as pbooks, is not a ridiculous thing for them to do.
This can work in their favor--had Amazon specifically approached the Rand Institute about ebooks, they might've been able to convince the institute that a Kindle edition would be a very profitable thing. Now, even if they do so, a lot of customers will be wary about purchasing it.