Kindle Deleted Ayn Rand Content

[HarryT]

The book was illegal. The initial report that the publisher "changed their mind" was incorrect.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The book was illegal. The initial report that the publisher "changed their mind" was incorrect.

No, the distribution of it was copyright infringement.

Using phrases like "the book was illegal" just confuses people to believe that possession of a book could be illegal.

[Phebe]

Thinking about all this, two thoughts at the surface:

1) Three books pulled off Kindles in two weeks? Amazon is making an announcement. They are saying, Knock It Off!! My guess is no one thought of this dodge, OCR-ing classics and selling them under the self-publishing capacity of Amazon. They are saying LOUD that copyright thieves aren't going to get away with it.

2) eBooks are huge. This is big. People love their eBooks and they are not tolerating the greed of some copyright holders in withholding classics that "ought" to be on eBooks. Amazon LIKES this publicity because it demonstrates the care and demand and excitement of the whole situation. Remember there is no bad publicity -- call me whatever you like, just don't call me late for dinner is the attitude in Hollywood and probably that's true here, too. I've seen a long thread discussing this on a forum where most participants had never heard of eBooks: now they know about them. They'll forget this complicated issue soon, but next Christmas they'll still know there are such things as Kindles.

I think Amazon is crying all the way to the bank.

[MaggieScratch]

I wonder if Amazon will tighten up the upload process in the face of these issues. Then people won't be able to buy the books in the first place, which means they won't have to take them off anyone's readers. Everybody wins.

[carld]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

I wonder if Amazon will tighten up the upload process in the face of these issues. Then people won't be able to buy the books in the first place, which means they won't have to take them off anyone's readers. Everybody wins.

Except for the people who have to jump through hoops, or pay a fee, or get extra paperwork done just to upload the books they're publishing.

I think this is all an enormous anti-Amazon fueled overreaction, and will only hurt eBook authors, and the market in the end.

Carl

[griffonwing]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

I wonder if Amazon will tighten up the upload process in the face of these issues. Then people won't be able to buy the books in the first place, which means they won't have to take them off anyone's readers. Everybody wins.

I think the lax guidelines are the major cause of this. I'm certain it would not be too difficult to have a database in place that checks the book name/author to a list of PD books, as well as popular non-PD books to verify whether or not this upload is legal.

And in the event that they can't have a database for everything, at least have 'knowledgeable experts' who monitor the uploads and can flag the books they deem questionable.

A flagged book is still uploaded, but is unable to be purchased until the flag is removed. A little research can verify whether the flag should be removed or the book deleted from the library.

How many experts do you think there'd need to be to monitor the uploads? Does this idea even have merit?

[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, not realising that Mobi feed their books to Amazon. It would be extremely difficult to guard against such things happening - Amazon cannot reasonably be expected to know who has the legal right to distribute a book in each country.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

I wonder if Amazon will tighten up the upload process in the face of these issues. Then people won't be able to buy the books in the first place, which means they won't have to take them off anyone's readers. Everybody wins.

IMO, they better. When they let people upload books without checking them, and then turn around and sell them, Amazon is also responsible for any copyright infringement. There's a big difference between an ISP just hosting user's material versus a retailer actively selling uploaded content.

I think Amazon definitely has some responsibility here to make sure that content they are selling is authorized before they do so. Whether the content on their store comes from their internal business units, or from uploaders, doesn't matter. Since they are the ones selling/distributing it, they need to verify it.

Personally, I think the whole idea of "you upload it and we'll sell it" was poorly thought out.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by tompe

No, the distribution of it was copyright infringement.

Using phrases like "the book was illegal" just confuses people to believe that possession of a book could be illegal.

A lot of the time people who say things like that, and the "copyright is theft" nonsense, are trying to create confusion.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I think Amazon definitely has some responsibility here to make sure that content they are selling is authorized before they do so. Whether the content on their store comes from their internal business units, or from uploaders, doesn't matter. Since they are the ones selling/distributing it, they need to verify it.

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?

[griffonwing]

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, not realising that Mobi feed their books to Amazon. It would be extremely difficult to guard against such things happening - Amazon cannot reasonably be expected to know who has the legal right to distribute a book in each country.

I agree with the MobiReference incident. But it would definitely keep the Ayn Rand debacle from happening again.

Maybe MobiRef could have multiple flags on their books, available for US, Aus, EU, etc.. Or better yet, since Amazon wants to go global, THEY need to have regional download options in place. It'll happen eventually, but right now, I don't see this going to end anytime soon.

I'm glad I don't have to deal with it.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

IMO, they better. When they let people upload books without checking them, and then turn around and sell them, Amazon is also responsible for any copyright infringement. There's a big difference between an ISP just hosting user's material versus a retailer actively selling uploaded content.

I think Amazon definitely has some responsibility here to make sure that content they are selling is authorized before they do so. Whether the content on their store comes from their internal business units, or from uploaders, doesn't matter. Since they are the ones selling/distributing it, they need to verify it.

Personally, I think the whole idea of "you upload it and we'll sell it" was poorly thought out.

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.

Carl

[carld]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

A lot of the time people who say things like that, and the "copyright is theft" nonsense, are trying to create confusion.

Or, rather, it's the term that makes the most sense, and it was the term used before people starting yelling "It's just copyright infringement!"

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by griffonwing

Maybe MobiRef could have multiple flags on their books, available for US, Aus, EU, etc..

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.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Amazon cannot reasonably be expected to know who has the legal right to distribute a book in each country.

They certainly should if they are selling books in that country.

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 are going to sell a product, they have a responsibility to make sure they can legally sell it.

If Amazon wants to sell copyrighted content in multiple countries, they better know what the laws are. Yes, it's probably going to be complicated, but that's their problem. They don't just get a free pass because it's "too hard". That's one of the costs of being in a market like that.