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Bubastes

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Old news, but worth mentioning again.

Karen Peebles, who is the author of I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, says she has self-published around 10,000 books though CreateSpace, not all of which are in her own name. "I am a single mother who home schools her children," says Peebles, who says she sells "thousands and thousands" of books a month. "Self-publishing is a great way for me to make income. I receive a pretty nice royalty every month."

"I'm surprised Amazon lets books like these go through," says Coker. "Whoever created these books are obviously trying to confuse consumers."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/16/amazon-knock-off-bestsellers/?iid=HP_LN

Some commenters said Amazon also sells gray market and counterfeit items, not just books (I'm not surprised by this if it's true). What I find puzzling in the comments: people defending Amazon's practices and saying buyers should be more careful.
 
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Bubastes

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OT: I do find it odd that the DOJ gave Wall Street a pass and yet came down hard on publishers, but that's a completely different discussion.
 

The Tourist

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Spamazon? You had me going there for a minute.

I thought you meant tough nubile women warriors that smelled like canned ham. Yikes, I was all set to go look for their saloon!
 

Darkshore

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Wow...it just seems like there's a lot going around lately to make the writing profession look bad. How do those "authors" think it's ok for them to do this?
 

The Tourist

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Wow...it just seems like there's a lot going around lately to make the writing profession look bad. How do those "authors" think it's ok for them to do this?

I'm not sure I get this, either. For example, you cannot keep some people out of their cell phones or computers, even during a car crash.

Then they whine about spammers, viruses, Ethiopian e-mails and new driving laws.

Amazon is a business, and the internet allows people to sell things. Duh.
 

PulpDogg

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How do those "authors" think it's ok for them to do this?

The same way these Nigerian princes think it is ok to do their scam - the same way PublishAmerica thinks it is ok what they do - the same way people sell counterfeit Gucci bags - the same way people sell drugs to other people or even kids - just because they can and because they get away with it.

You and me wouldn't do that. But not everybody has the same moral values or scruples. Scams are as old as humanity itself and aren't limited to publishing.
 

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So the "I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" thing is obviously chameleon advertising which is misleading to the consumer and may prevent some people from buying the original at all, which is almost like stealing royalties. I see why this is unethical. For this particular type of unethical behaviour, though, I'm not sure how to remedy it. This isn't the first time two books have had similar titles, and unless there is actual plagiarism in the book I can't see how you could legally stop this book from being sold. First amendment and all that.

The best I could think would be to include a little flag by the title saying, "Did you mean to buy..." with a clarification statement explaining the difference between the two books.
 

readitnweep

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It does not seem as though Amazon, for all its protestations to the contrary, is doing much to stop the problem. It can't be that difficult for them to create a system that identifies potential rip offs in self-publishing, especially if they own the publisher.

Thanks, Bubastes for sharing this.
 

Torgo

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So the "I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" thing is obviously chameleon advertising which is misleading to the consumer and may prevent some people from buying the original at all, which is almost like stealing royalties. I see why this is unethical. For this particular type of unethical behaviour, though, I'm not sure how to remedy it. This isn't the first time two books have had similar titles, and unless there is actual plagiarism in the book I can't see how you could legally stop this book from being sold. First amendment and all that.

The best I could think would be to include a little flag by the title saying, "Did you mean to buy..." with a clarification statement explaining the difference between the two books.

Is there not law against passing off? I'd expect to get sued if I wrote a book called 'I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'.
 

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Is there not law against passing off? I'd expect to get sued if I wrote a book called 'I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'.

Well, I'm not a lawyer, so keep that in mind. I just know that whenever I do a search for a specific title on my library database, the first couple of hits are the book I'm looking for, followed by a number of completely different books with similar words/structure in the title. Adding "I am" to "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" might make it different enough to make it legally distinct, even if it's not practically distinct.

But again, I'm not a lawyer. If Stieg Larson or his publisher wanted to sink the time and money into a law suit, they might be able to prove that the difference is negligible and therefore an infringement. My guess is that a judge would have to make that call. But it has to go to court first.
 

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Wow...it just seems like there's a lot going around lately to make the writing profession look bad. How do those "authors" think it's ok for them to do this?


Yesterday, the front-page ad on Amazon was "Who says writing can't pay the bills?"

They are increasingly using writers as a revenue stream.

And a lot of self-publishing buzz is about commodifying your books, making sure you have plenty of volume in the pipeline, experimenting with price points, etc.

No surprise a lot of them are just taking the next logical step and figuring out ways to sell books while skipping the time-intensive step of actually writing them.

It's "How to make millions on eBay" all over again.
 

Alpha Echo

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I didn't realize this was old news and only saw the headlines a couple days ago.

I was shocked.

I suppose I shouldn't be. But things like this just don't cross my mind! I can't believe Karen Peebles actually did an interview. To claim that you're an author...when she does what she does...is shocking to me! Really!

Every time I think I'm not so naive, something like this comes across my attention, and I realize how optimistic I am and how much I truly look for the good, both in people and situations.

Part of me is upset with Amazon, but truthfully, I love Amazon. I'm sorry. I do. Wrong or right, I do. I buy everything there from my daughter's birthday gifts to my Mary Kay lip gloss to my books.

I don't know how much we can blame Amazon. Wouldn't that be like blaming Google for allowing spam to come through? For missing one email from a Nigerian? Or Craig's List for nearly being scammed out of a laptop once?

The blame lies with the scammers.

It's good for us honest people to be aware and to be careful and to spread the word.

I do wonder though...I don't have a problem accidentally buying the wrong book and wonder how others do, to be quite honest. I always read the first couple pages. I read a couple reviews. And I buy the book - a legit book. By a real author, whether self-published or traditionally published.
 

KathleenD

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Side note: I don't see a problem with "volume in the pipeline." I want to write for a living. That means I want it for my job. That means doing my job every day. If I only launched one piece of software every couple of years, I would be a pretty terrible software producer.

As for the title issue, I am as horrified by "I Am The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" as any sentient being should be... but at the same time, not everyone with title issues is a jerk.

For example... me! My second novella from Carina Press is called "Her Kind Of Hero." I thought it was very clever. The story features a beta hero. For the heroine, he starts out being her "kind of" hero, meaning sort of or a passable imitation of a hero. By the end of the book, he's her "kind" of hero, meaning her type.

Yeah. I know. No reader will ever think that hard about it. But overthinking is my superpower.

The real point is that I did not realize until the book had gone on sale that Diana Freaking Palmer had used the title about a year and a half before I did. No one in the editorial process caught it either.

I'm not sure they'd have done anything differently if they had caught it. Is it even possible to copyright a title?
 

benbradley

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I'm not sure they'd have done anything differently if they had caught it. Is it even possible to copyright a title?
No but a title can be a trademark. That costs more than copyright, but it gives pretty strong protection, and is surely worth it for the title of a best-seller. Words and phrases such as Twilight and Harry Potter are absolutely trademarked for book titles.
 

Manuel Royal

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Curious: what's the actual content of "I Am the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"? Does it bear any resemblance to the real novel? (Just wondering how they avoid getting sued for plagiarism.)

ETA: Okay, the idea of somebody ripping off "50 Shades of Grey" is kind of funny.
 

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Curious: what's the actual content of "I Am the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"? Does it bear any resemblance to the real novel? (Just wondering how they avoid getting sued for plagiarism.)

ETA: Okay, the idea of somebody ripping off "50 Shades of Grey" is kind of funny.

I'm doing a cookbook called 50 Shades of Gravy.
 

Celia Cyanide

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What about movies? A company called Asylum makes movies that are knockoffs of blockbusters, and it confuses renters. Aren't they legally allowed to do that?
 

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It might be a case where, although it's technically illegal, it would cost more in time and legal fees to sue than they lose on it in the first place, so they just send a cease and desist.
 

Priene

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I don't know how much we can blame Amazon. Wouldn't that be like blaming Google for allowing spam to come through?

There's an element of truth in this. I looked at a couple of the scamming books in the article given. Both had ISBN numbers. Amazon wasn't actually selling either itself - it has an API which allows third parties to sell goods online through their marketplace. You upload the ISBN to your marketplace with a price, they register it for sale, and if someone buys it you fulfill the order. If they have metadata for it - publisher, book cover, number of pages - that automatically appears on the Amazon page, and the metadata is provided by a third-party (probably Nielson in the UK). Amazon could block the sales of particular ISBN numbers (perhaps it does in some cases), but antiquarian books can be uploaded without an ISBN. They'd then have to start playing whack-a-mole with a determined scammer.


The blame lies with the scammers.

That's my feeling too, and of course publishers can take legal action if their copyright is being violated.
 

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On Twitter, the person who wrote the Fortune article linked to a CreateSpace book on pregnancy that's actually titled What to Expect When You're Expecting.

:Wha:
 
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