Amazon has filed a lawsuit against a publishing company to stop a practice called “book stuffing,” which involves recycling passages from some books in order to create new books from them. The lawsuit also tackles the problem of using robots or “clickfarms” to artificially inflate numbers. Although the lawsuit is directed at a specific company, this Forbes article found by Writer’s Relief is a warning to self-published authors who may have used these practices.
… an Amazon subsidiary filed in federal court seeking to confirm an arbitration award against British book publisher Jake Dryan and his companies, relating to claims that the publisher’s companies abused Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), the Amazon self-publishing program. According to Amazon Digital Services LLC’s petition, Law360 reports, the self-publisher breached Amazon’s terms by using bots or “clickfarms” to inflate page views and manipulate their ranking. However, the petition also identified another practice in violation of Kindle’s terms: The act of “combining selections of works they had already published into purportedly new books.” It’s a much-hated move that’s called “book stuffing” by the self-publishing community. While book stuffing is a minor element in the arbitration case, Amazon’s win is the first indication of a legal precedent against the practice.
Learn more about the Amazon lawsuit here.
I am an author of a children’s book and I am realizing that their are poachers in very industry. My book was slashed in half and I called amazon/ create space (shut down) and Kindle requesting immediate removal I can’t believe the run around that I have received. long holds, hoops and log ins that have been impossible WHY CAN’T THEY UNPUBLISH? INSTEAD THEY are sending me through the hoops, I think they are stealing artis and their work and making money on all of us making it almost impossible to get your book off of Amazon. They so far have high jacked my book and after one hour of shuffling I can not get any help of getting my book off Amazon.
Unfortunately, we are not lawyers and therefore cannot offer legal advice. We would recommend contacting a publishing or copyright lawyer with your situation.
Lots of luck with Amazon! But you can get your book off KINDLE with CreateSpace, now Kindle Direct. Write Kindle a certified letter addressed to the old address of CreateSpace. This is your right with the Digital Millennial Copyright Act. They will at least take it off Kindle.
Don’t waste your time trying to deal with their outsourced reps. by phone or email. When I asked for the physical address of the Amazon office, someone from who knows where told me that they only had a PO Box. I said, “Are you trying to tell me that Amazon conducts business from a PO box in the post office lobby? No response. I had to find the address online myself.
There needs to be a class action suit against them.
We are not lawyers, so we cannot offer legal advice We recommend speaking to a lawyer who specializes in publishing.
Amazon is stealing Author’s books. Amazon takes the Authors book as their own. They have zero contract or communication with Author. An Author can not take His book away from them. Fix this criminal activity.
It is TRUE! Amazon is selling books by the thousands and telling authors NONE of their books have sold. Read proof in this free book and join in A LAWSUIT
There is a whole Chapter about crooked Publishers with PROOF
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/990583
I have two original books marketed on Amazon Kindle for more than eight years yet it appears not even one copy was purchased in all that time. I receive all the Kindle financial newsletters regularly over the years, but this makes me suspicious of covert transferring inside Amazon Kindle as the publisher may be redirecting any profits showing no book sales when possibly any number of Kindle books did in fact sell. Are there other authors suspicious of this possibility, is there a history of theft of sales at Kindle? I could not find anything directly related to this on search engines.