Kindle Deleted Ayn Rand Content

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Start with an actual contract between Amazon & the uploader, requiring signatures, not clicks.

They do have one. You have to fill in a form with such things as tax details, bank account details, etc, on it, sign it, and fax it back to Amazon. Your books don't appear in the Kindle store until you do this.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carld

Amazon did not, the uploader did.

Amazon is a direct party to the unauthorized distribution. Yes, the uploader definitely committed infringement, but Amazon is just as responsible.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They do have one. You have to fill in a form with such things as tax details, bank account details, etc, on it, sign it, and fax it back to Amazon. Your books don't appear in the Kindle store until you do this.

Should be a simple matter to check up on the information submitted in that form. Why didn't they?

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Amazon is a direct party to the unauthorized distribution. Yes, the uploader definitely committed infringement, but Amazon is just as responsible.

I disagree, Amazon is no more at fault than the phone company or an ISP when they distribute illegal content.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

That's an excellent point. Right now, what Amazon is allowing is no different than what TPB did. It's interesting that some of the people who were attacking TPB the most are now defending Amazon.

TPB was specifically set up to encourage the distribution of pirated material, that's entirely different and not in the least comparable to Amazon.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carld

Then there's no point in doing it and you've closed off one of the few decent avenues open to an ebook self-publisher. The authors and readers all lose out big time. Nope, I think things are fine as is.

They don't have to close it off, but they have to verify the sources. Yes, it is going to be a lot of work. That's Amazon's problem. They can't say "We don't have to follow copyright law because it's too hard".

[HarryT]

I guess that it doesn't stop someone providing false information - presumably the only requirement would be that the SSN or Tax ID you supply matches the name (can companies easily check that? I don't know how these things work in the US). Of course, the person wouldn't actually receive any money, but perhaps that wasn't their goal.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carld

I disagree, Amazon is no more at fault than the phone company or an ISP when they distribute illegal content.

They are directly profiting from commercial copyright infringement. That's not even close to an ISP who is merely hosting material.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

They don't have to close it off, but they have to verify the sources. Yes, it is going to be a lot of work. That's Amazon's problem. They can't say "We don't have to follow copyright law because it's too hard".

You have to do more than verify the source. To do what you're requiring you have to check the books themselves. A copyright violation, no matter how much good faith, is still breaking the law according to what you're saying.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

They are directly profiting from commercial copyright infringement. That's not even close to an ISP who is merely hosting material.

That's exactly like an ISP hosting copyright material, they're both profiting from commercial copyright infringement. It doesn't matter how removed you are from it, if you're profiting, you're profiting.

[HarryT]

Presumably this is why Amazon fully refund customers' money when such things are detected, to remove any possibility of being accused of profiting from copyright infringement. Without profit, I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that it becomes a civil, rather than a criminal, matter, should the copyright holder wish to take any action.

[Shaggy]

If Amazon can't verify that they are authorized to distribute the content, then you think it's OK for them to do so? The only penalty should be that when they are informed that it was unauthorized that they just need to take it down. No harm, no foul.

Think about what you're saying. Do you really feel that distributing content should be perfectly OK as long as you're unaware whether the content came from an authorized source or an unauthorized one?

So Jammie Thomas can say that yes, she uploaded 24 music files on P2P. But since she didn't verify whether or not she was allowed to, as long as she just removes them from her upload folder when the RIAA complains, then there's no penalty? No trial, no fine.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Presumably this is why Amazon fully refund customers' money when such things are detected, to remove any possibility of being accused of profiting from copyright infringement. Without profit, I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that it becomes a civil, rather than a criminal, matter, should the copyright holder wish to take any action.

I don't think you can "undo" a copyright violation. You either engaged in commercial distribution without authorization, or you didn't. You can't "fix" it after the fact. The "actual damages" will certainly be different, but the law was still broken.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carld

You have to do more than verify the source. To do what you're requiring you have to check the books themselves. A copyright violation, no matter how much good faith, is still breaking the law according to what you're saying.

I don't believe copyright law says anything about whether or not it was "in good faith".

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That might work for uploads by individuals, GW, but in this case what appears to have happened is that a perfectly reputable publisher uploaded the book to Mobipocket, in a region where the book is is the public domain

Why do you think that? I have not seen anybody claim that before and I have not seen anything indication that MobiPocket books uploaded to MobiPocket ends up at Amazon.