I'm still struggling with this, so please help me out with this example case. Amazon.com sells a newly released (Sept., 2007) paperbook published by Pocket Star entitled "Secrets in the Attic". The author shown on Amazon's web page is V. C. Andrews. There is no information from Amazon indicating any other authors or any comment that might indicate others might have been involved in writing it. The cover says "New York Times Bestselling Author V. C. Andrews" who died in 1986. Below that it says "From the creator of "Flowers in the Attic" which is a title that really was written by Andrews. You can't see the title page of the book from the web page so you don't know if there's additonal info there. From the product reviews, some customers seem to understand that the real author was Andrew Neiderman who apparently has been the ghostwriter for many V. C. Andrews titles. A search of Andrew Neiderman on Amazon does not list this or most of the other titles that he apparently admits to ghostwriting for Andrews.
Now one can argue all day about the ethics of this practice (personally, I'm appalled!), but I'm more curious about the legality of it. If the publisher doesn't provide the true author's name on the cover, what makes this practice legal? Even if that is legal, if the true authorship is known from some disclaimer inside the book but Amazon does not provide correct authorship info, how is that legal? Any ideas?
