Amazingly enough it’s not even possible to be sure you’re buying a legitimate Kindle book anymore.
I often buy classic books but want a particular edition which might include specific notes or a translation by a specific writer, but following the Amazon search - actually clicking on a link where I’ve constructed the search with meticulous attention to the terms that are essential to me - will often lead to a totally random result from an unknown ‘publisher’ which meets none of my criteria and wasn’t the link that was presented to me.
Obviously all the reviews are bunched haphazardly together - including the ones that praise the translation which the presented book doesn’t include, and the ones warning about poor formatting from the pirated edition.
If Amazon can’t even sell Kindle titles without commingling, then it blows my mind people buying electronics from them.
Anybody know why their copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas is "unavailable for legal reasons"? It's linked from wikipedia, but the link is dead (in America anyway) This book was written and translated into English ~150 years ago. Gutenberg has it.
We produced it using Project Gutenberg's modern F. P. Walter translation. At the time, there was no copyright notice on the text, only PG's public domain boilerplate, so we produced it thinking it had been dedicated to the public domain. Some years later PG added a copyright notice, so we were forced to take our edition down.
There is no acceptable PD translation of 20,000 Leagues; all the classic translations are widely considered to be slapdash, very bad, or severely bowdlerized.
Yes, bowdlerization and poor translations were common in those days. We do our best to select a single "best" translation that scholars/readers agree is the most faithful of the public domain options. But in some cases, like 20,000 Leagues, we'd rather not host a book at all than host a bad translation, if that's our only option.
Thanks - that is amazing! As a Kindle Oasis owner, which I love in terms of screen size (7 inches) and auto adjusting light, is there any non-Amazon e-reader device alternative that anyone would care recommending?
I absolutely love my B&N Nook. I'm on my sixth Nook, across four generations. Because I don't live in the US, and the Nook is not available locally, I'll sometimes buy two when I'm in the US for redundancy.
The devices are snappy, but not as snappy as the newest Paperwhite or Oasis from what I see on Youtube. Still, I don't even feel the pageturns. It's still faster than turning pages in a dead tree book. The killer feature is the backlight. The backlight level is adjustable to a far lower level than the Amazon devices, which is nice in a completely dark room. And on the Nook one can set the redness level, I keep mine right in the middle usually.
Another nice think about the Nook is that you can install arbitrary Android apps right out of the box - including the Kindle read app from what I've been told (I don't use it). I do install Ankidroid on my Nooks, in fact that is my primary use of the devices. I sync Ankidroid over wifi with Anki on my computer.
Break-even according to one study is 22.5 books over the lifetime of an ereader.[1]
I found a separate source estimating that a paper book (typical) has a CO2 offset of about 2.6 kg CO2. I think that's just production costs, but just considering those, it takes only on the order of 50 books over the lifetime of a device to break even. Once you factor in CO2 output from the supply chain and more dwelling space to accommodate more bookshelves, break-even is probably in the neighborhood of the study's figure.
There are other reasons that's probably not a fair comparison. Ereaders seem to increase people's book consumption. Reading means not doing things like driving around for entertainment, so buying an ereader even to read books you already have might be a net positive on CO2 output.
I was talking about the materials aspect, not the environmental impact aspect.
Though if you do bring it up, I bet it takes more trees to manufacture my entire book collection if it were on a shelf, than the single Ereader that can store them all )) Truth is my book collection is a mixture of both.
I really like my Kobo Forma. 8" screen, physical page buttons, allegedly waterproof (never tested though). I check out library ebooks then load them to my Kobo with Calibre+Alf the Apprentice.
It looks like the Libra 2 might be the new version that would compete with your Oasis.
I have both a Kobo reader and a Pocketbook reader.
Both are great, both can read CBZ/CBR comic book formats, have custom fonts, get all books via WiFi sync.
Lately I use the Pocketbook more because it synchronizes the book reading page between the reader and the smartphone app. No matter where I got the book from.
Depending on your firmware version (a fairly recent build was found to be exploitable), it might be worth looking into jailbreaking your kindle and installing Koreader to it, instead of buying a new device?
It has easy adjustment of the backlight and can read all kinds of formats.
My one complaint is that it's slow to boot and has shorter battery life than Kindle because it's Android-based. I actually use the built-in reader app for everything instead of Android apps anyhow, but I love knowing that I could write my own app if I wanted to, or just download one from the net.
The resolution on graphic novels is surprisingly good for e-ink IMO.
I just turned it back on and it's at 82% and was last fully charged 5 days ago. It's been on for 2hrs and 44min since then according to the battery screen.
It says it'll last until about 22:45 and that it's currently 05:10. (I apparently haven't set the time!)
I typically read for 30-60 minutes at night, I'd say, so those numbers make sense to me. Seems like about 20 hours.
That is a good point, thanks. It is not that I want to change device only because of lack of support for open ebooks. In general I’d like to start being less reliant on Amazon and I just thought of asking for advice starting from this discussion.
Yes, it is amazing that there would be counterfeit Kindle books.
I own an Amazon Oasis which I like, but I try to split my eBook purchases fairly evenly between Google Play, Apple, and Amazon. It seems wise to not put all of my digital library on one vendor’s platform. I also like to sometimes buy directly from authors or publishers.
I have both editions of Chollet’s book. It irritates me that he is getting ripped off.
The only safe thing you can do is strip the copy restrictions immediately upon purchase. Or just be OK with the fact that you are really renting an ebook when you "purchase" it.
I noticed this some months back when a deals site posted a complete collection of The Witcher for £1. It was very clearly not uploaded by the original publisher/author, but that didn't seem to deter people. They were just happy to be getting a collection of ebooks for a quid, and didn't seem to care that the money was going to a pirate
To me, this is a leading indicator that Amazon's ecommerce side will falter. When I look at the reviews for an item, some reviews are high and people are happy, and other people have terrible experiences that doesn't even seem to be for the same item. I think it's because of this issue, where Amazon lets 3rd seller to claim that they have inventory for something.
I really don't trust Amazon for a lot of things now, and would rather go directly to the seller on their site. Especially now that I've gotten older, I just want less stuff but with higher quality.
I stopped using amazon a few years back after reading over and over about their treatment of warehouse employees. I couldn't stand the thought that the people handling my order are mistreated. I wasnt a big spender but still, up yours amazon. I redirect my money towards smaller shops even if i have to pay more. I’d even stop using aws but i cant talk clients into it. The cult like mentality that plagues tech is now focused on amazon web services. Cant wait for the fad to die off.
> Working in an office as a developer for Amazon =/= Amazon warehouse worker.
Definitely a good point!
> The latter are effectively treated like shit.
That said, based on almost everyone’s feedback who I know that’s been a software engineer, they are effectively treated like shit too, just better paid than the warehouse staff.
As a counterpoint, I work in AWS on an ec2 core team and couldn't be happier. Remote work, learn a ton, capable coworkers, lots of interaction with other engineers from other team, and easy access to principal engineers.
Cons, could always be paid more and oncall is tough.
The fact that the USA population is notoriously anti-union, and Amazon nevertheless managed to put the union option back on the table.
FWIW, I stopped using Amazon when the German strikes started and we found out what was going on. Europe can live without abusive companies like that, even if it makes our stuff a bit more expensive. I know I wasn't the only one.
I worked for Walmart, as stocker, at the height of the anti-walmart (which amazon has now seemed to replace) rhetoric,
While walmart was not perfect, and some middle managers could make life hell for some workers, as a company most of the crap I saw on the news was just rhetoric or things taken out of context by union organizers for the purposes for try to get a union installed.
Having lived through that, I see alot of that being echo'ed in the amazon debate. Unions look to gain ALOT of revenue from unionizing these companies, I am not sure why everyone always assumes the motivation of the union is altruistic and the motivations of the company is always evil
The world is much more Gray than the employee vs management dynamic people seem to subscribe
As someone from Western Europe, there are some assumptions in here that I can't agree with.
Both a company and a union do their little dances on the news. Nobody believes either one is telling 100% of the truth. We've all seen unions start strikes for stupid reasons, or sing la-la-la-I-cant hear-you when a member clearly needed help
But, it's common around here to have multiple unions in 1 company. You can shop around if you don't like one. You can not join any union. This market dynamic makes unions compete for you. Both unions and workers also understand that they won't gain anything if they drive a company out of business or to another country.
Specifically for Amazon, we've never heard much about Walmart or anti-walmart rhetoric over here. We have hard discounters which can be demanding for their employees, but they don't clash that hard or that regularly as Amazon does. Things like the bottle peeing are new around here, and confirmed by other parties than the unions. Ignoring collective agreements is also unheard of for a company of this scale. The underlying general idea around Amazon seems that it tries to import an US-style no-rights-worker model into Europe. If that takes root, we're all worse off. People sympathize with that, even if it is rarely enough to counter the siren song of cheap goods.
>>But, it's common around here to have multiple unions in 1 company.
that is not the US system and why I personally get sooo frustrated with Europeans commenting on US labor relation, and US Unions. Europeans look at the issue from their lens, of their laws, and their unions which is completely different from the US. You can not compare the two at all.
At best in the US if you happen to be in a right to work state you can choose not the join the (and I mean THE, singular) union that represents the work force at the company. that is a "labor" union
The closest we have to EU style unions would be a trade union, but even then normally there is a single union that represents a trade, like the "Screen Actors Guild" for actors. There are not multiples.
>Specifically for Amazon, we've never heard much about Walmart or anti-walmart rhetoric over here.
Anti-Walmart rhetoric started to die off around 2010.
>Things like the bottle peeing are new around here, and confirmed by other parties than the unions.
It is in the US as well, and i take these stories with extreme skepticism.
>The underlying general idea around Amazon seems that it tries to import an US-style no-rights-worker model into Europe
Again the US has plenty of labor laws, the primary difference between the US and Europe is the amount of required paid benefits an employer must offer, but abusive actions (such as forcing an employee to pee in a bottle) is no more legal in the US than in Europe
> If that takes root, we're all worse off.
I have no problems with US Labor laws, remember the US is very individualist, and for the most part, most of the population prefers this. I have no desire to have the government dictate to me and my employer how many vacation days I have must have or things like that. I am not soo extreme as I to say all labor laws should go away, I think laws that prevent true abuse (like requiring an employee to pee in a bottle, or requiring employees to stand for hours off the clock at security check points unpaid) are area's where the government can and should step in, but that is where it should end.
I'm a bit sceptical that the political controversy around Amazon is an accurate reflection of their desirability as an employer compared to other companies.
What despairs me is, if it becomes well-known among the general public, Amazon can just say “Ok, we’ll stop comingling now, we’ve identified this as the cause, it will get rid of the problems” and they’ll get another 10 years of us having to prove that they have other problems (the slew of Chinese vendors who can dodge responsibility).
But the press won’t even take issue with Amazon’s comingling. I wonder why. The press always seems to cry on the working conditions, without ever mentioning how dangerous the products are to consumers too. I bet our governments have ties with Jeff Bezos…
I don't think the specific issue here has anything to do with commingling. Commingling means putting all inventory of the same item from different vendors in the same basket, and taking items at random from that basket at the time of fulfillment, without a clear way to know the originating vendor of the fulfilled item.
Here, the problem isn't that items are put together in the same basket, it's that they are counterfeit: no seller should have any "new" inventory of the book, at all; new inventory should only come from the publisher. As the publisher isn't an Amazon seller, Amazon itself needs to buy the book from the publisher, and carry it in their own inventory.
Not commingling, ie carrying a separate inventory for each vendor, doesn't change the problem at all: all inventory not coming directly from the publisher is counterfeit.
In theory, it could be possible for other vendors to buy from the publisher and then sell on Amazon; in practice this is highly unlikely. But Amazon doesn't care and doesn't do any basic check.
They are probably hiding behind the fact that the sellers are doing the counterfeiting, not them. IANAL, but since they obviously benefit from it, it should be possible to sue, not just in civil court, but in criminal court as well.
Commingling the reviews are also an issue. Reviews are basically the only way to fight back for consumers as Amazon isn't doing anything. Now if you intentionally mix reviews knowing some bad actors are in the set it, it should IMHO make Amazon either complicit or commiting a concealment.
Why does Amazon have multiple sellers for any item in new condition, in that case? By your logic, there should only be Amazon or the direct manufacturer. What am I missing?
Different products have different standards. Since two vendors control like 90% of book distribution, there isn’t as a robust a distribution network as there once was. Since Amazon is the dominant retailer, they know that it’s not possible for anyone to make money selling new books on their platform.
For other products, that’s isn’t so. For say a laptop memory card, there’s a dozen authorized distributors that supply various resellers.
The whole issue is Amazon saying “Fuck you, we’re Amazon” to the market.
I have a very niche book that is primarily sold through Amazon. A pet peeve is always third parties offering "new" copies of the book when I know the only way to get a legit brand spanking new copy, previously unshipped, is via my publisher (me) who uses Ingram/Lightning Source to print and fulfill on demand. Ordering a copy on demand from LS is not possible for the general public.
So naively, you should only be able to get "new" using the sold from Amazon* (as they get stock from Ingram periodically) or by my back-stop listing which is out of my own personal inventory.
What I've found out since is that some of the resellers are able to order directly from Ingram and so can somewhat legitimately offer a "new" copy for sale through Amazon. Their listing prices are always above the default Amazon price as they need to recover the Amazon selling fee (greater than the 28% wholesale discount I offer through Ingram).
Unfortunately, when Amazon's stock is out they frequently list such sellers as the primary seller on the product page (buy now) rather than my own listing (which is in name of the publisher).
So if you see a listing of "new" and it is below the official Amazon price, it is not really new. It may be "like new" but it is definitely not new. Those listings at prices higher than Amazon's may, or may not, be new.
*Ingram is able to distribute to a long list of booksellers so it is entirely possible a book is printed on demand off an order through say BarnesandNoble.com. While I do not get any info on who Ingram sells to, it is pretty easy to track Amazon's by their references to either how many remain in stock or "more on the way" and a print order hitting Lightning Source.
I think it will just be a junky convenience store, a lot of people are fine with that. I'm disturbed by how little they care about kindles / ebooks though as they've basically fundamentally altered the book publishing market forever and don't seem to care.
The inventory stuff is weird. I’ve had twice now where a company has repeatedly sent the wrong product again and again with me sending it back each time, then I think Amazon notices because they disable the listing for everyone
My Prime lapses this month. If I can't trust a business, I can't trust it. I'm not wading through figuring out how to create my own manual filters to hopefully get what I wanted/ordered. I said before, in what dystopia is Best Buy now better/less shady than Amazon?
Add on Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers as icing on the cake and nah, I'm good.
The Silk Road was not directly selling drugs, it was only a marketplace where other sellers did it, and for this reason it was taken down. AFAIK selling a counterfeit item is a crime too, so shouldn’t Amazon be treated the same ? One could argue that the Silk Road was created with the purpose of enabling the crime, unlike Amazon, but with the problem becoming bigger every day I think that Amazon knows about it very well but doesn’t act because it is against their economic interest, making it complicit of the crime
I was arrested for linking to a 'terrorist' publication that was FOR SALE ON AMAZON.
And the only reason I linked to it was to point out it was for sale so how could it be illegal? Places like Amazon aren't held to the same standard as regular people and that really needs to change.
It is a throwaway account made just to comment that. So I doubt he/she will say as they might be uncomfortable doing that even with a throwaway account.
> One could argue that the Silk Road was created with the purpose of enabling the crime, unlike Amazon
And... that would be exactly why, yes. Intent matters in the law, and the burden on a seller isn't perfection but merely "good faith". Amazon clears that bar, probably[1]. Silk Road very clearly did not. Also, of course, drug and weapons trading gets a vastly higher level of attention from law enforcement than counterfeit hardcopies of tech books. This analogy doesn't really fly. It's like asking why police execute arrest warrants more reliably for murder suspects vs. shoplifters.
[1] There are very reasonable arguments to be had about whether they should be doing more and what internet market-makers' responsibilities are here. I don't expect this HN thread to illuminate them though.
>>It's like asking why police execute arrest warrants more reliably for murder suspects vs. shoplifters.
ironically the number of unsolved murders is at record high because murders are not actually the focus of most law enforcement resources.
it is also a terrible analogy because murder and shoplifting are much further apart on the criminality scale (both in severity and possible punishment) than Drugs and Counterfeits are, which in reality both have about the same levels of severity and punishment classification under the law
The law is being bent all the time. If your business is big enough the gov will not come after you unless there is a political twist(i.e Sackler family) and even then you will not face criminal charges.
Hypothetically, it could run a bit deeper than that.
Amazon also runs a Print-on-demand (PoD) operation and offers that as a paid service to booksellers. Several years ago they acquired a company called BookSurge which was into PoD. Booksellers can store their virtual book inventory (i.e., print PDFs) on Amazon's servers and Amazon would route a customer order to their PoD service to print the book and ship it on demand.
While this is a legitimate service for legitimate publishers/booksellers who own the rights for the book, it is quite easy for unscrupulous sellers to just virtualize their entire illegal print operation with Amazon undermining authors and publishers.
I am not sure what kind of controls Amazon has to prevent abuse of their system.
Just to be clear, I am not insinuating that this case (or any other case of counterfeiting) has anything to do with Amazon's PoD operation. Just that this is an attack vector for them that potentially impacts legitimate authors/publishers/booksellers.
I used their POD service when an elementary school I had connection to couldn't purchase the reading materials for the classes due to back-order. The program happens to distribute their materials under a creative commons license and make available a PDF of the books. I was able to upload the materials from the publisher and print several hundred copies of multiple books, but eventually Amazon shut us down.
We already had enough for the term, so we didn't pursue it much more but they ended up refunding all of the money that we'd spent buying the books from ourselves in order to, I guess, avoid being complicit in copyright infringement. They didn't really understand the creative commons license.
I'd guess if it's your gig to pirate books you have to play whack-a-mole with getting your books removed, but small orders probably don't get reviewed so the time scale is going to be long.
It’s shocking Amazon aren’t doing anything about this instance when the issue is raised directly. How can a store be complicit in selling bootlegged items and when confronted with it do nothing?
If it is indeed endemic in some categories at Amazon then surely the leadership at Amazon are aware. Do they just not care?
If I were a publisher I’d be furious at this situation. A regulator really needs to investigate and make Amazon police this more effectively.
hard to care when it makes you money to look away and the stakes are still low (some unhappy customers, not a focus of politicians or law enforcement or mainstream media). this is our “market solution”.
Unless they changed how inventory commingling works, you might even get a counterfeit item when ordering an item that's sold and fulfilled by Amazon.
That could happen because they consider (or at least considered) items with identical catalog id to be identical, so if for for a given item id, its "Sold by Amazon" inventory is empty while the FBA (sold by 3rd party, Fulfilled by Amazon) is not, they might "lend" one from the merchant until restocking their own inventory.
This is bad, and it gets worse. They allow products under their identifier system (GS1?) to change entirely. One day it could be a key chain with 100 4-star reviews, the next day the same page is selling a piece of junk smoke alarm, a week later a USB cable or an iphone case. And the case has 4 color options... red, blue, selfie stick, and large.
You are saying a merchant could send in fake garbage items for an expensive listing, then buy it out himself so Amazon will give out authentic items that belong to a different merchant’s inventory? That sounds too good to be true.
1. There's some non-thorough verification of the items rather than completely trusting the merchants.
2. Merchants could sanctioned if caught sending counterfeit items.
3. You don't get to choose how Amazon stocks its fulfillment centers.
4. Assuming that part of the suggested con is to set the counterfeit items price to a fraction of the Sold by Amazon, I'd guess that Amazon would probably be more careful with grouping vastly differently priced items together regarding of their ID.
Again, these are all just assumptions but with that in mind, I would guess it won't be an easy thing to pull off.
By the time I learnt about fake products issue on Amazon a few years ago and started paying attention, my kid had already consumed a ton of baby formula (top brand) that I ordered from Amazon. I still sweat when I think about it.
Why is Amazon not doing enough to fix the issue? It's frustrating. I think Amazon is confident it's not easy to disrupt them and hence don't care enough to fix it.
I had something similar happen to me when I ordered a copy of Epictitus's Enchiridion, and I received a tiny leaflet (20 pages), with gigantic font and no real content.
I paid for the "book" presuming I would get a nicely bound and accurate translation. Instead I received half of the book, with an open domain but outdated translation from the 1800s, and no form of recourse.
This is precisely the reason why I don't (and have never) make a PDF of my book [1] available. It took me a couple of years to write, and while it doesn't make a lot of money by pro author standards, it's been the difference between me going broke during COVID and not.
Surely this would be an easily solved problem if Amazon cared to solve it?
Piracy sites are full of high-quality scans of books that don't offer PDF versions - even modern ones. Sometimes it's the only way to read an out-of-print book where a paper copy is simply impossible to find.
Amazon has been careful with the launch here in Australia, as our government won't hesitate to slap Amazon. They did a small launch where their inventory sucked, but they're expanding pretty rapidly with their own warehouses here in AU. The logistics behind it are pretty interesting, where I think they fly the packages from say Sydney -> Perth, then use to use Australia Post but now use their own contractors.
They would have to be very very careful with introducing random third parties, right now from what I can tell on Amazon AU you can only buy through Amazon directly (ie they have the item) or via an "authorised third party" where they are a pre-established brick and mortar (every store I've seen on Amazon I know who they are).
Australia is pretty good with the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission), there are some horror stories from both side but most of the time it works out good for the consumer.
Your comment made me curious, as your purchase is a camping Titanium cup. By coincidence I am also interested in one :-) But at the same time, your comment illustrates the prime example of the terrible conundrum facing who wants to buy at Amazon.
Normally Titanium is quite expensive, and although pure Titanium cookware is one of the safest metals, it's heat distribution is not really ideal. Some companies titanium cookware has titanium alloyed with other metals and materials. This provides end results, with a non reactive cookware that is now not as expensive as pure titanium.
In other words as titanium isn't the best conducting heat, there is the possibility was coated with other metals than can potentially leak into food.
See [1], [2] and [3]
So to make this type of purchase, personally, it would be quite important to know who the vendor is, where are they based, are they on a country with reputable manufacturing controls?
Looking at the 3rd party seller you provided as example, you do notice their guarantees, certifications and mention the product is 99.8% Titanium. But who are they? Where are they? Who controls them?
Looking at their 3rd Party Seller shop in Amazon, there is nothing to easily identify the seller. A series of stock photo images from outdoor camping events...Further research shows they also have a page at Alibaba, but again no mention of who they are than can be easily found. Just a lot more stock photos of outdoor living and camping.
Invoking all my Internet search Fu skills, you end up finding they are a medium sized manufacturer based in Guangzhou.
At the same time they are also listed on a random Reddit comment as a generic manufacturer of cookware of difficult to verify quality... See [4]
So what is an Amazon customer to do? Their research for Amazon? Trust the Chinese authorities quality control?
Maybe the products are really excellent but it's way too much research. Will go to a reputable camping shop, and maybe buy from a reputable manufacturer...
Whilst I agree with your general message that 3rd party sellers are problematic from the consumer safety point of view, I'd suggest you are overestimating the dangers of titanium based cookware specifically.
I'd note that all the links you point to say titanium is safe, and the Reddit discussion notes concerns about aluminum (which of course is much more common in cookware than titanium).
So Amazon do nothing when this is reported to them. I reported an eBay listing recently, they did nothing. I reported a spam youtube comment, nothing. Google scam ads investigated by the BBC - nothing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56886957 .
I've tried fixing inaccuracies in Google maps. The pin for my address is halfway up the road when in reality it's on the corner this is in a decent sized town not the middle of bumfuck nowhere so I assumed it would have been accepted but multiple attempts over the years since I've moved in have been fruitless.
It's not a massive problem as anyone I know I can just direct but no amount of shipping notes seem to help couriers or delivery drivers.
I had the same issue around 2018. Google Maps would show my address on a street a couple of blocks away. Mine was the only address on the street with this issue. This is in a suburban development where the houses are right next to each other. I reported it to Google and about an hour later it was corrected.
Isn't this solvable with a DMCA takedown notice? Amazon is legally required to respond to them. Sure, the fake seller might try to create a new product page and post it again, but I imagine they do this with a lot of books, and being just annoying enough might make them stop doing it to this particular book.
I suppose the fake seller could also counter-claim the takedown, and it might be difficult to find them in order to sue. I wonder if you could get a court order to force Amazon to take the listing down permanently, though, after all that.
> Isn't this solvable with a DMCA takedown notice?
Does DMCA apply? It is mostly about digital information on the provider's service and the article was about printed books. 17 USC 512(d) does provide for applying the DMCA takedown procedure "for infringement of copyright by reason of the provider referring or linking users to an online location containing infringing material or infringing activity, by using information location tools, including a directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link" and that doesn't say anything about the infringing material being referenced being digital.
I'm not sure though that linking/referencing/pointing to a seller of infringing physical books would be infringement. A brief search suggests that the law in this area is not yet clear.
"""
The issue affects ~100% of Amazon sales of [Deep Learning with Python, second edition] since March or April. That's because, amazingly, since fraudsters are claiming to have inventory, Amazon has stopped carrying its own inventory for the book (i.e. it has stopped ordering new copies from the publisher).
"""
Amazon has long since been run by crooks and staffed by desperate workers, both blue and white collar. Even as they do stuff like this, no one else can compete and authors eventually give up and go there. Worse, almost every public company eventually ends up here, short term paperclip maximizing and screwing everyone.
Feels like our current market/economic system has failed badly.
I disagree. I believe capitalism is actually about maximizing the return on capital.
Sometimes this takes the form of MBA paperclip optimization, but it can also take the form of simply making something lots of people want. Hollywood is an example of the latter - they don't seem that concerned with minimizing costs, because they believe that if they make a good movie that resonates with audiences, they'll still get a 10x return on investment. :)
Ha! Work in the film industry buddy, that minimizing of expense mentality is in full bloom. The film industry is a propaganda engine, of course it appears to not care about expenses - that's how it attracts the rubes (like I was) to enslave with illegal work "best practices".
I constantly get ads on Youtube making illegal earning statements for some randos get rich online scheme, that I report, and am then served again a week later. So they are knowingly making money on illegal predatory ads. Just saying.
My utter contempt for what Amazon has become is well established in my comment history.
For anyone who wants to know more about their predatory practices, specifically around bookselling, then I recommend that you pick up a copy of “How to resist Amazon and why” by Danny Caine from your local bookshop.
It saddens me that companies I admired so much as startups (Amazon and Google mainly) have become so powerful and dystopian.
I often post in Youtube Ukraine videos trying to correct pro Russia propaganda. Often in a thread, half the other person and half of my posts are censored. I'm also not notified, so my posts show up when I am logged in, but not if I am logged out. Same for the other person. They should just not offer a comments section at this point as whatever they have now is super dystopian with no notification or explanation for their censorship.
Stories like this are why I only ever buy items on Amazon that are sold by and shipped from Amazon. (In case it's relevant, this is in the UK.) I've been buying from Amazon for 20 years and have only ever had issues on the rare occasions when I strayed from this rule.
That might not be enough since Amazon commingles their inventory with potentially fake inventory from their 3rd party sellers. You have to check the other sellers page and look for other sellers who are Primed enabled, meaning they store their inventory in Amazon warehouses and use Amazon shipping. It gets tiring having to check that list, but it definitely prevents impulse buying.
Can confirm. I bought a charging cable allegedly "sold by Amazon" and I got a reboxed broken item with a customs stamp signifying it had once been imported into Brazil. Quite a world traveler!
Go on Amazon UK and search for books by "Anett Muller", no umlaut. A couple of dozen listings, everything shipped and sold by Amazon, everything an obvious fake. I reported the listings when they appeared, almost a year ago, and Amazon did nothing.
Judging by how a dozen titles were dumped onto the store on a single day, and the highly specific yet disparate subject matter there are probably thousands of 'authors' like this. Some have hundreds of five-star reviews. In a few minutes I I identified a whole bunch of them: "Chillout Note Books", "Kim Karandash", "Steve Oneli", "Karolina Mendez", "Kai Halson", "TKH Team Publisher", "Dwayn Clarkes", "FỌRT-NITE Coloring"
Some look like they're using homoglyph attacks to evade detection, which is pretty sad given how trivial that should be to bypass. Given how many obvious fakes I could find in a short time with no special tools, it's also probable that there's even more less-obvious fakes out there.
So yeah, "sold and shipped by Amazon" is essentially meaningless as a badge of authenticity.
> Go on Amazon UK and search for books by "Anett Muller", no umlaut. A couple of dozen listings, everything shipped and sold by Amazon, everything an obvious fake
How are they obvious fakes? What is there in the product pages to indicate they are fake?
I see they're dispatched and sold by Amazon and I got no other information to tell those are fake. How do you know?
Did you even read the listing? This is the fakest fake that ever faked. Why does this "independently published" Berserk colouring book make no reference to the original author, the Japanese publisher of the original or the English publisher? The description reads like a totally generic description of a children's colouring book, and makes multiple references to "relaxation" and "stress reduction", and being for "kids" with "small hands". This is a Berserk colouring book. You know, the manga series notorious for featuring extreme violence, psychological horror and sexual content. Nothing in it is relaxing or remotely suitable for children.
The pattern continues with the other listings, why does a Fortnite colouring book spell "Fortnite" wrong? Twice, and differently each time using an unlikely homoglyph? Why isn't it being listed on the Epic Games Amazon store with the other Fortnite books? All of which mention being "official" when this one doesn't. Why does the description claim "unique" and "hand drawn" art yet the preview show clearly automatically vectorised screenshots or key visuals? And I don't even play Fortnite, so this isn't even some deep insider knowledge.
Someone clearly has a script to pull images of trending IPs from a search engine, vectorise them and then sell them as 'colouring books' on Amazon through PoD with generic descriptions. There's similar rackets with notebooks, t-shirts, mouse mats and mugs through other PoD services.
Weird, the only item I've ever bought on AMZN is a physical out-of-print book which I thought was the one thing left over from their startup phase where they got book stores behind and which they got right.
Your reasoning sounds weird but Amazon actually is a good source for out-of-print books. Another good source is a abebooks, which is also owned by Amazon, unfortunately.
My experiences buying books from Amazon have been basically positive apart from the generally poor state of on demand printing. As far as I'm concerned they do get it right.
Cynical programmers don't write about OK experiences.
Same here in France. I've never gotten a counterfeit (that i know of), and sometimes I've gotten lower quality than expected stuff, but returns take care of that. Across electronics (multiple switches and ethernet cables, batteries, usb cables), clothing, random small stuff (like a trash bag holder or laser meter).
Is Amazon slowly and scarily becoming a real unregulated worldwide black market? How come no local laws to some random specific country or something are not making Amazon accountable for these things?
I can speculate why the company with the largest digital infrastructure marketshare on the planet who also holds a large market share on phycial logistics for consumer and business goods gets special treatment or at the very least has policy makers intimidated.
Again, speculation, but I'd say there is a great conflict of interest trusting gov to regulate itself in the sense gov agencies have large contracts with aws.
Amazon is becoming a garbage dump of fraud and junk knock-off sellers. A majority of these sellers are in China, so I don't know why Amazon would have any difficulty auditing them. They need to do a clean sweep of these garbage sellers and then improve their "approved sellers" list for the future.
The problem is becoming wide-ranging and rampant, so if they don't, they just may become an artifact of history.
I would never buy a counterfeit book as this price point.
But absolutely would for overpriced college books. Most of those books were a giant scam. Buy this year's edition for $300, sell them back to the college bookstore for $40 because there's a "new" edition.
Counterfeiters are going to counterfeit, but Amazon should definitely be liable here since they've bee made aware of the issue.
I don't understand why people willingly use Amazon for most buying or selling at this point.
That said, in response to this, I would probably format the book's PDF edition so that an aspiring republisher would have to do a lot of work to get it print-ready.
The no hassle convenient returns keep me coming back.
It takes the risk out of online shopping.
There's 5,000 reasons not to use them and 500 other vendors that have similar policies but I know how expensive a return actually is so I would rather do that strategy with a company I don't care about.
They run retail at a loss and frankly I'm more than happy to be one of their stubbornly unprofitable customers.
And the guaranteed invoicing. I own a company and a lot online sellers are unprofessional about invoices, delivery times, credit card confidentiality, shipping company (“Don’t worry that glass is strong, there was no need to move it away from those angular machines that we shipped in the same truck”), basic security, let alone they ship a broken extinguisher to you.
Speaking only for myself: because...I don't see it in the stuff that I buy?
I've bought tools from Amazon fairly recently. They're things that you could totally counterfeit if you were interested in doing so, but at the same time they're things that I can immediately identify as being either legitimate or indistinguishable from such. Like, I purchased a set of iGaging double squares on Amazon and tested them against my surface plate and my Starrett square. They pass. Maybe somebody's counterfeiting the thing and selling it at the same price to me, but it's also not a worse product, so I couldn't tell.
I don't doubt that there's a lot of counterfeiting going on, because it's the internet, but it probably depends on what you buy as much as anything else. I'd be much more worried about substandard quality from buying things from the bajillion sellers with what sound like generated names (because they all look the same but did this one swap out component X for one that's a couple cents cheaper?) because there's no good way to control for it--but in those circumstances Amazon's return policy is also pretty great.
I don't buy books much, but it's definitely an issue with electronic tools. Scales, calculators, heart rate and oxygen monitors, computer accessories, or really anything with cheap electronics that aren't _too_ complex and sells well is counterfeited. If you can find the components on tindie, then they can likely find them mass-produced and cheaper, and if it sells well and makes sense to have someone design a copy and manufacture it then they're going to. Whether it ends up on Amazon specifically is a different question. Typically it's a matter of when and how long, not if.
Obviously this becomes an issue with tools because unless it's an exact copy being made in the same factory (which does happen with outsourced Chinese products and this is typically when you'll see /almost/ exactly the same product with 10 different listings and 10 different brand logos on them), it doesn't have the R&D and QA that the original product has. Even if they are made in the same factory, they don't necessarily have the same quality, latest software, or warranty of the original. Where the American company that outsourced that oxygen meter may have opted for the medical grade, consumer-safe plastic and tests each batch, the counterfeiters are happy to use the cheapest materials they can find, which are at best only lower-quality, and not actively unsafe. Counterfeiters make money through active deception, and money is the goal, so they will _never_ pay for the best materials and tech. If they can source the metal made with lead for 5% cheaper than the non-leaded equivalent, it's not even a question. They are going for the cheaper option, because that's 5% more profit.
I often avoid Amazon, but do purchase from them occasionally. If it's available for just a few dollars more, I buy it elsewhere.
Just recently I found something $15 cheaper at Amazon and decided to go with them. I got something that very likely is used (some of the internal packages had been opened, outer container/box had creases, and had been clearly taped closed, etc). It was a time sensitive item so I couldn't return it and get a new one in time.
Fitting that just when I told myself "Oh what the heck - I'm saving $15, let's just go with Amazon" I end up getting a used item sold as new.
I believe Amazon increases the price with time, for a given customer. Now I can’t find anything cheap on Amazon, all the crap seems to be at +15€ compared to shops.
It would be interesting to make a new account to test that. I assumed it's because they have so many millions of customers locked in with free ("free") prime shipping that they know they'll be fine price matching upwards as long as it's a similar price elsewhere online, because they are who most people I know think of when you "need something like tomorrow" and don't want to go shopping.
I think a lot of sellers also include the shipping cost in the price of the item and ship it to Amazon so it can be PRIME-eligible.
For a while they had a better selection, better return policy, and "free two day shipping" which combined blew any other online or offline retail operation I was aware of out of the water in terms of the complete customer experience (excluding certain niches like pharmacy or luxury that they weren't really participating in).
Since then, the others have caught up and they have stagnated. I'm starting to look elsewhere more often but habits do change slowly. I hate to say it but I don't think too hard when I need the little odds and ends Amazon is still pretty good at delivering.
They are the only game in town as far as self-print selling is concerned, if you want to make money.
Despite getting 1/3 the money per copy compared to selling via Lulu.com (although this has changed now, lulu pays a lot less than they used to), I made a lot more money selling via Amazon than via lulu. I held out for years until the situation was untenable financially, and now only sell via Amazon for this reason.
I live in Germany, and this particular type of book (English IT books) is much more easily available via Amazon than regular book stores, because the standard wholesalers which the book stores use often don't have them in storage.
Having said that, I haven't seen a counterfeit book yet, maybe the problem is not as widespread here as in the Us?
I think most people don’t actually care if anything is real. Even if it’s a safety hazard, even if someone is getting screwed- it’s basically an internet flea market.
> I don't understand why people willingly use Amazon for most buying or selling at this point.
Looking at some recent Amazon purchases of mine, I bought at Amazon because there was no obvious reasonable way to buy elsewhere.
1. I've long had one of these [1], which I bought decades ago in some local store (probably a bookstore) and it works great and was cheap. I really just wanted another one of those but they seem to be unavailable now except from medical supply companies (WTF!?) for around $35.
Barnes & Noble, Office Deport, and Staples all have book stands, but none with the simplicity and versatility of the Easi-Reader. Amazon at least has some with the same general design [2] so that's where I went.
2. I wanted a pyramid-style mechanical metronome. I don't really need it--I've got an electronic metronome, my piano has a built in metronome, and there are numerous free metronome apps for mobile and desktop, but a mechanical one would look great sitting on my piano, and I like the swinging arm so I can see the beat.
The only reasonably local music store doesn't have that style. They only have this kind of mechanical metronome [3], which I find ugly. The major online music stores either don't have mechanical metronomes, or only have expensive ones.
Amazon did [4]. It even matches the color of my piano.
3. A PT100 temperature sensor. I could have gotten one from Adafruit or Sparkfun or Digikey or similar, but they all charge a lot for fast shipping and even slow shipping is pretty high. I generally only use them when I've got enough things I need for longer term projects that I can place a big order.
When I want just one thing in a couple of days, like that PT100, I usually go to Amazon [5].
4. The most ridiculous recent Amazon purchase was dial calipers. Surely that is something I can get locally at Home Depot or Lowe's, right? Nope. My HD only stocks 3, one digital, one vernier, and one that is just a sliding ruler with caliper jaws so it can take inside and outside measurements. HD does have a dial caliper online for ordering at least. Lowes's only lists 3 on their website, two digital and one vernier which is the only on in stock at my nearest store.
The one that can be ordered at HD is plastic, and there isn't a lot of reviews on their site. So I went with Amazon [6].
5. I wanted a guitar stand that was not bulky and would work well with a classical guitar. I went with an Amazon Basics model [7]. The local music store wants $37 for an A-frame stand. They have a tripod stand for $18, but those are too bulky for where I wanted to use it.
6. A classical guitar strap [8]. My local music store does carry that exact same strap and it is even in stock, but that store is about a gallon of gas away round trip and this is such a low volume item that there is little risk of Amazon's being counterfeit so I went with Amazon.
(BTW, that strap is great! I've never been comfortable with the usual footstool approach nor ever been able to actually get good position that way and was considering trying something like Guitarlift [9] or ErgoPlay [10] but the sound hole strap approach is cheap enough I though I'd give it a try first as not much would be lost if it didn't work. For more options for and the history of supporting classic guitars see this video [10]).
Absolutely. No Starch Press has been in the forefront trying to tell people about the problem. But nothing ever changes. It's very sad and bad for society.
I have felt this for a while now. They send these cheap prints that have print bleed through from one side of the page to the other, and the print resolution is very poor and makes it very hard to read. The paper itself smells of kerosine. And the paper isn't cut nicely, there are striations on the long edge of the cut etc. I try to return them but they only do replacement and keep sending another copy of the same bad print. It takes extra effort to call the customer support and push for a refund. All in all, its quite painful to purchase and read physical books from Amazon.
Most digusting thing I encountered on Amazon was when I bought a book about dealing with chronic pain. I was really depressed for weeks and had flare ups all the time and also I couldn't get medication because of Brexit and chaos with the import licenses for certain drugs. So I was looking for something that could help me deal with it - I wasn't really expecting to find anything groundbreaking, but if you are desperate you will try anything. So I found this book that description was appealing to me and it had great reviews.
The book arrived the next day. It turns out it was a scam. Just a cover and empty pages. It was like being in a car crash and then having a bystander punch you in the face, that's how I felt.
I didn't have strength to go to Post Office to return it, but fortunately after explaining this to Amazon they refunded me without having to post it.
Now what I am angry about is that we pay a ton of money in taxes for institutions like Trading Standards, Competition and Markets Authority, Serious Fraud Office and Police and they seem the be not doing their job.
If you started an online business and facilitating the sales of counterfeit goods, they would probably be all over you, because who is afaid of a small guy.
But if it is giant like Amazon, I can feel that a mere thought of doing anything about this brings officers a brown stuff down their pants.
Why don't they order closure of Amazon until they sort this out? One law for the rich, one law for the pleb?
The majority of people ordering from Amazon are happy enough to keep ordering there.
If you shut down Amazon, you're the one in trouble with your populace.
That leaves the legal route, which has been pay-to-play since the medieval times, and corporations can spend more on lawyers than most statutory departments.
For any author or fba seller impacted by IP/Trademark theft such as that described in this article.
My company dealt with this. We spoke with fantastic lawyer that will go thru the motions (its not a quick process) and get the reseller banned from amazon for a very affordable fee.
Amazon makes this very hard to do and oftentimes you need to sue in a foreign country, so you need someone that knows what they are doing.
If you would like the contact, post a way to email you the counsel's contact info.
Yea, I’m not sure how accurate some of the methods he’s showing are. I have a pretty large collection of tech books and I had a look at the gluing after he said it. My O’Reilly, Springer, No Starch, Pragmatic and CRC press books all have pretty consistent binding.
Whereas I have some manning books like the Grokking series that I buy directly from them when they have those Black Friday sales and the glue looks pretty similar to the counterfeit he’s showing in the picture.
That said I usually try to buy from sold by amazon or directly from manning or no starch when buying new. Manning has some great topics and the quality of the content is pretty good too.
I really try to avoid buying books (or anything other than throwaway products) from Amazon.
While I don't think I've received counterfeit books, (just electronics), Amazon also has a print-on-demand system that is horrible.
Oftentimes these counterfiet books are printed/bounded from Amazon's own printers, these counterfieters don't even have to produce anything themselves, other than uploading a PDF to Amazon. Amazon does it all for them.
Unfortunately, if an author's book (legit sold through Amzon) I want is only printed off Amazon's print-on-demand service, I can't get it anywhere else. I think I've seen reference that Amazon makes an author have an exclusive with their print-on-demand, but I can't find a reference right now. Bah. We need to have less exclusive tie-ins and more choice.
> I think I've seen reference that Amazon makes an author have an exclusive with their print-on-demand
I haven't heard anything like this for print books (print on demand or otherwise).
There might be some "exclusivity" like aspect for eBooks that are part of the kindle "unlimited" subscription service, but you can opt out of that and distribute on other platforms, n.p. One thing they require is that you use the same "list price" on all distribution channels.
I have a book printed through Amazon and there's no exclusivity. Not sure if there's something new, but I don't think many authors would go for that since Amazon provides basic zero additional support.
Maybe the solution is to start a buying club to purchase and return these books until the sellers give up. 100 people buy and return the book would solve the problem because Amazon is unwilling to solve the problem as long as they make money at it.
I think it’s more guaranteed to get the original book content from http://b-ok.org/ then from Amazon. It’s like we are back to the time when piracy has better offers than “official” channels.
For YouTube that is how the law (DMCA) is written. If they took a more active role they would probably lose the safe harbor protections and get sued into oblivion.
No, the law does not require the Content ID system. Other platforms don’t have it and they’re fine. I took down a content stealing TikTok account with DMCA just two weeks ago.
Content ID is just a way to do the claims. You could still do illegitimate claims just fine without it (on TikTok too)
What DMCA says is that the service provider has to take the content down and forward the claim to the uploader. It does not really provide any leeway about trying to figure out if the claim is legimate or not. It is up to the party who uploaded the content then to dispute it.
Content ID is explicitly not a way to do DCMA claims, it’s a pre-DCMA automated process outside the legal framework that flags a lot of false positives. The legal DCMA takedown process is only initiated after (1) Content ID flags content, (2) uploader disputes copyright claim; (3) claimant rejects dispute. The claimant can block you for 30 days without doing anything.
Can they implement such a system? Sure. But don’t say it’s DMCA or they’re required to do it. They have a separate DMCA process, and the cost of submitting false claims is higher there.
I am unfamiliar with the technicalities of the DMCA, but is it possible that it may not be applicable in this case?
If I am not mistaken, the DMCA deals with removal of copyright infringement per se from digitally available media. However, the listing of this product on Amazon's website is not in itself a copyright infringement. Instead, it is a "legitimate" listing of a product for sale which happens to be counterfeit when eventually received. Illegal no doubt, but can it really be taken down by DMCA procedure?
DMCA also says that the service provider has to restore the content if the uploader disputes the claim, and forward the uploader's contact information to the claimant so that the claimant can take it to court if the claimant wants to continue pursuing the matter.
I don't understand why Manning (the publisher) can't use copyright to go against the fradulent sellers. Isn't a copyright violation a very costly court case in the US?
A musician is selling his music via his own webshop as CDs. Amazon is also selling MP3s for download. Only, those are illegally sold. He said he took several listings down already, but eventually just gave up as Amazon keeps relisting them.
Not sure why publishers are not filing class action lawsuit. Complaining on Twitter is worthless. Corraborating and supporting distribution of illegal copyrighted goods has to be crime.
"It affects nearly all high sale volume technical books on Amazon. If you've bought a technical book on Amazon recently there's a >50% chance it's a fake."
If it were a high sales book, Amazon would probably have it in stock and they would sell it themselves. If not ... Things can be frustrating.
If it's high sales then it's counterfeited even more. The counterfeits are sold for 20-40% less than Amazon's (presumably real) stock, and so Amazon lists the counterfeits as the only Buy Now option.
This doesn't work in countries with book price fixing.
So the problem rather is online distribution of counterfeited books in countries that, for whatever reason, abhor government intervention in the book market. In the US, this is a political problem that stems from political decisions. It's not the problem of a single company. (I'm definitely not defending Amazon.) The main question here is are these political decisions in favor of book authors?
Now, serious, why are not class action lawsuit attorneys ganging up on Amazon? This impacts entire international industries, how they mismanage authenticity of their goods.
And Amazon is getting into healthcare... what a cluster fuck their lack of goods verification will be when its prescription meds?
I switched mostly from Amazon to Argos here in the UK. There are like 10 of them within a 15 minute drive of me, and I don’t live in a big city. I can see what is in stock and go and pick it up in less than an hour with click and collect.
I stopped buying physical books online altogether as the average print and paper quality have gone down so much over the years. As bookstores no longer carry long tale or niche inventory, I had to go the ebook route.
How can it be that Amazon is allowed to do it?
they are responsible, no doubt! If a local shop would do the same, you can imagine who would be charged: the factory of the product or the shop owner himself?
Amazon is first and foremost a marketplace for cheap Chinese goods and counterfeits. It strange it's taken this long for people to start picking up on that.
I often buy classic books but want a particular edition which might include specific notes or a translation by a specific writer, but following the Amazon search - actually clicking on a link where I’ve constructed the search with meticulous attention to the terms that are essential to me - will often lead to a totally random result from an unknown ‘publisher’ which meets none of my criteria and wasn’t the link that was presented to me.
Obviously all the reviews are bunched haphazardly together - including the ones that praise the translation which the presented book doesn’t include, and the ones warning about poor formatting from the pirated edition.
If Amazon can’t even sell Kindle titles without commingling, then it blows my mind people buying electronics from them.