Amazon…accomplices in a crime?
I allege they are. The country’s largest retailer started as an online bookstore. Maybe now they should be banned from the book business?
I’ve hammered the online retailer for years on this blog, and for many reasons, but the story about illegal copies of my favorite classics like 1984 and Animal Farm in August 20’s NY Times is my tipping point. Orwell’s estate isn’t getting any royalties from these classic dystopian books and others. Someone else is, because they’re often rewritten (some by high school students!), and/or have the author’s name changed (you can’t copyright a title, but if the content is basically the same). And Amazon condones these scams by allowing them to happen.
These scam tactics and piracy in general occur because some readers want cheap versions, and scurrilous “entrepreneurs” are willing to provide them. It’s like a customer buying a fake Gucci handbag or fake Rolex out of a car trunk in Manhattan (I’ve seen that occur, and many of those cheap knock-offs come from China). If it looks the same and costs less, what the hell, right? Wrong! Think about it. China’s whole economy was built on this principle (other countries like India are now playing this game), so consumers should know better, but they still buy the knock-offs. Those classic knock-offs on Amazon are in that same category…and Amazon is a much larger trunk!
A few nights ago, I was browsing on Amazon. I do that sometimes because I don’t want to leave a chapter of the book I’m reading unfinished before I turn on the TV—in this case, it was a PBS show without commercials, so I couldn’t finish the chapter as the commercials ran (muted, of course—annoying soundtrack plus annoying video equals doubly annoying, so I eliminate the soundtrack). It seemed like the more I refined my search criteria, the more books the Amazon bots threw at me and the more worthless they were, and, presumably, the more their authors or publicists paid to get into that exalted position on Amazon. I was denied the experience I have in a bookstore or library by this huge company that, when history is taken into account, owes its very existence to the book business.
I soon embarked on another browsing journey. For some time now, I’ve bought some classics just to have them on my Kindle. I looked for 1984 and Animal Farm and a few others. Lots of Kindle versions, but they all looked wrong, so I was at a lost to find one that was like the original paper version. I was ready to give the retailer the benefit of the doubt (silly me), but my show came on. The next morning, I saw the Times article and had my suspicions confirmed—old classics can be knock-offs.
If Amazon encourages these fake and pirated copies, they’re criminals. Even if they’re just allowing them to be sold at their website, they’re accomplices. At the very least, they should be banned from the book business for their egregious lack of quality control. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they sold Gucci or Rolex knock-offs either. They have many third-party merchandise providers. They don’t have the manpower to regulate them (their oft-quoted alibi), but that’s no excuse for aiding and abetting online criminals. Moreover, if the U.S. government is incapable of regulating the retailer, they should close it down.
The problem now is that Amazon doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what merchandise they’re selling. They’ll sell anything…even fake and pirated copies of books. And, it seems from my browsing that too many good books and good authors are punished because of their promotion policies, which obviously include those fake and pirated copies that take the place of the good books.
This doesn’t affect me much as an author. Even with all my books, I rarely sell a book on Amazon. (Maybe what I described about my browsing session is the reason? I don’t believe in giving Bezos more money.) I sell more through Smashwords’ affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) because Smashwords is also a distributor. Amazon, in its arrogance, doesn’t bother to distribute to anyone, but they’re willing to receive crap from third parties and sell it. If not a crime, we can certainly add that to its list of sins, especially when it comes to books. I’d remove all my books from Amazon in protest if I thought it would do any good and I had the time. For now, I just have to learn to live with it, like I do those trunks full of knock-offs sold on many a Manhattan street corner.
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Comments are always welcome.
Son of Thunder. Scotland Yard Inspector, Esther Brookstone, now retired, becomes obsessed with finding St. John’s tomb, using directions from Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, in this mystery/thriller. Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden tries to keep Esther focused and protected while he multitasks fighting illegal gun merchants. The reader can also follow how their romance is going. All in this new book in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series–coming soon from Penmore Press.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
