[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

That is odd because there is an option at Amazon to delete a review you have posted.
So yes at Amazon.
Can you please point me to exactly where Amazon owns the review? It does not say that anywhere on the reviewing page nor is there a pop-up.

Yup, lemme go look. I'm pretty sure it's in the reviewing t&c, but ya never know, I could be hallucinating. (Don't think so, but...)

(Returns later, disheveled from digging...)

HERE we go. I hadda rummage around:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...&nodeId=508088

And the relevant sections are (although you, as always, retain the copyright, of course, as you wrote it):

All content included in or made available through any Amazon Service, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, data compilations, and software is the property of Amazon or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws. The compilation of all content included in or made available through any Amazon Service is the exclusive property of Amazon and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. (in the "Copyright" section)

followed up by, in the REVIEWS, COMMENTS, COMMUNICATIONS, AND OTHER CONTENT section:

If you do post content or submit material, and unless we indicate otherwise, you grant Amazon a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, perform, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media. You grant Amazon and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such content, if they choose.

Sorry--I misremembered. It's a license, rather than outright ownership, which allows them free use of your review. At one point, I'm relatively certain that it was ownership, but after the DMCA, they probably changed it to a license, because--why not?

I'd have to rummage even further, to see if the license you grant Amazon, when you review a book, transfers to the publisher, as a sub-licensee of Amazon's, but given that Amazon has taken to displaying snippets from reviews all over the sales page, I'd guess that their in-house counsel would say that it does, certainly in conjunction with selling copies on Amazon, if naught else. I'd have to go look through all the T&C in the publishers' areas, both KDP and Createspace, but I suspect that a publisher definitely qualifies as a "sub-licensee" by almost any interpretation of the documents.

As I said--my guesses and speculations should be pretty clearly defined. The quotes are direct; the ruminations are mine alone.

Although, really, Cinsajoy, once you've published your review, why would you mind if the publisher in turn used it? Sure, if they were going to put it on their cover, I could see your complaint, as the review text itself is copyrighted, but on a blog or webpage or..?, what's the issue?

Hitch