Kindle Deleted Ayn Rand Content

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But practically speaking, Shaggy, how do you think they might do that?

It's reasonably straightforward to determine whether or not a book is in the public domain, but what if you find that it isn't? How could Amazon determine whether or not the uploader has the legal right to sell it? I think that as a matter of practicality, really all they can do is to require the uploader to declare that they have the right, and that's precisely what happens now.

Do you have any suggestions as to what else they might do?

How does a physical bookstore know that it is authorized to sell the pBooks that it carries? How does Fictionwise know that they are authorized to sell the eBooks that they carry?

Is verifying every user's uploaded content going to be really difficult... absolutely. IMO, it's a bad idea to begin with. However, that doesn't mean they can just ignore the copyright issue.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

If you find a physical bookstore selling a pirated pBook, do they just get to say "Oops, my bad, I didn't know any better".

If they've bought the book from the wholesaler in good faith, then yes, I would expect any reasonable legal system to say that they cannot be held responsible. Of course, I know that courts don't always do what a typical person might consider to be "reasonable".

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

How does a physical bookstore know that it is authorized to sell the pBooks that it carries? How does Fictionwise know that they are authorized to sell the eBooks that they carry?

Is verifying every user's uploaded content going to be really difficult... absolutely. IMO, it's a bad idea to begin with. However, that doesn't mean they can just ignore the copyright issue.

They don't ignore it, the act to rectify any violations discovered.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

When you upload a book to Mobipocket you do so via a web-based "control panel" called "eBookBase". For each book, you can select which retailers the book will be distributed to (one of those retailers is "amazon.com"). The default setting, however, is to distribute the book to all retailers. The publisher screwed up, basically.

Which specific case are you talking about? I thought the Ayn Rand book was uploaded by an individual, not a Publisher. Are you talking about the Orwell incident (a different thread)?

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carld

They don't ignore it, the act to rectify any violations discovered.

Rectifying after the fact doesn't "undo" the copyright infringement. They have still broken the law, regardless of whether they act to rectify it afterwards.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Which specific case are you talking about? I thought the Ayn Rand book was uploaded by an individual, not a Publisher. Are you talking about the Orwell incident (a different thread)?

Yes, I was referring to the Orwell one. So many threads - apologies for any confusion.

The Rand case appears to have been a clear case of someone trying to deliberately "make a fast buck", from what I've read about it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If they've bought the book from the wholesaler in good faith, then yes, I would expect any reasonable legal system to say that they cannot be held responsible. Of course, I know that courts don't always do what a typical person might consider to be "reasonable".

Amazon allows a lot more than wholesaler's to upload books.

I don't think Amazon allowing Publishers to upload content is really the problem. Amazon allowing anybody to upload content and then automatically adding it to their store without checking it, is the problem.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Rectifying after the fact doesn't "undo" the copyright infringement. They have still broken the law, regardless of whether they act to rectify it afterwards.

Amazon didn't break the law any more than any other bookstore breaks the law when that happens. The books are recalled, pulled from shelves and so on.

[HarryT]

Yes, I agree with you that the uploader registration process should be tightened up, and that the person should be made to prove their identity in some way. Of course, they already do have to if they want to actually get paid, but there's really nothing to stop someone making a malicious and false registration just to "cause trouble" by uploading books that they don't have any right to.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carld

And how exactly are they going to check every book uploaded? They can't just check the title and author. The whole book has to be checked for copyright material, and what are you going to check it against? There's no master database containing the text of every book currently under copyright, and that's what would be required to actually check uploads for copyright violations.

That's why selling content that comes from unknown/unverified sources is a bad idea.

That's the real problem here. If Amazon wants to get into the business of letting anybody upload products to them that they'll put up for sale, then they need to verify that they can legally sell each one. Yes, that's going to be a huge amount of work. That's why other retailers don't allow it. It's Amazon's choice to get into that business, but there are going to be some huge costs involved with verifying all of the content.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But practically speaking, Shaggy, how do you think they might do that?

How could Amazon determine whether or not the uploader has the legal right to sell it? I think that as a matter of practicality, really all they can do is to require the uploader to declare that they have the right, and that's precisely what happens now.

Do you have any suggestions as to what else they might do?

Start with an actual contract between Amazon & the uploader, requiring signatures, not clicks. Require a notarized statement that the uploader has the legal right to sell the book, with verification of identity. That would discourage casual uploaders with throwaway email addresses.

Make that declaration that they have the right to publish something that will hold up in court if Amazon is questioned for accepting it. Right now, their defense looks a lot like thepiratebay or grokster... "We told them they had to stay legal! We're not responsible if people lie to us!" They're not... but they are responsible for taking reasonable measures to verify that people aren't lying. "Click here to agree" is not enough.

Add some research from Amazon--they should maintain a list of popular works not in the public domain (for their own marketing purposes, if nothing else; they should be seeking access to books not available as ebooks elsewhere). Amazon is not a small company; it should not be a great hardship to establish & maintain a list of 3-10 thousand books that, if attempted to upload, trigger a "verify more details" procedure.

Potentially the list could include a few dozen currently popular authors, and a huge set of deceased authors whose rights are owned by heirs or publishing companies. Requiring verification of those rights, something beyond "yes I say I have this legal right," would prevent future problems like this.

Oh, and shut off the auto-feed from Mobi books that are published in different parts of the world, where the copyright laws are different.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carld

Amazon didn't break the law

Of course they did. That's what copyright infringement is. They were distributing copyrighted content without authorization.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

That's why selling content that comes from unknown/unverified sources is a bad idea.

That's the real problem here. If Amazon wants to get into the business of letting anybody upload products to them that they'll put up for sale, then they need to verify that they can legally sell each one. Yes, that's going to be a huge amount of work. That's why other retailers don't allow it. It's Amazon's choice to get into that business, but there are going to be some huge costs involved with verifying all of the content.

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.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Of course they did. That's what copyright infringement is. They were distributing copyrighted content without authorization.

Amazon did not, the uploader did.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Make that declaration that they have the right to publish something that will hold up in court if Amazon is questioned for accepting it. Right now, their defense looks a lot like thepiratebay or grokster...

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.