Re: Re: Amazon remotely deletes 1984

At 12:55 PM -0500 7/21/09, Robotech_Master wrote:
> 
>On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Erica Frank<<mailto:elfwreck%40gmail.com>[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Both of these incidents say a lot about Amazon's confirmation
>> processes before they sell ebooks.
>
>Amazon's confirmation practices for third-party content in general are
>pretty shoddy. For instance, they quite happily sold a
>printed-on-demand bad Star Wars fanfic novel for several months before
>someone complained about it.
>
><http://www.terrania.us/journal/2006/04/now-at-amazoncom-bad-fanfic-and-books.html>http://www.terrania.us/journal/2006/04/now-at-amazoncom-bad-fanfic-and-books.html
>
>I wonder if the DMCA has something to do with it--they can't filter at
>all or they lose "safe harbor" status? Just a guess though.



Hmmm. Does Amazon really have a responsibility to confirm that an ebook publisher has the right to publish each work?

I'd have to go look at the Kindle agreement, but I'm fairly sure it says something like "publisher warrants that it has the right to publish each book uploaded to the Kindle system, and indemnifies Amazon for any losses for works that it doesn't have the right to publish."

Confirmation is not required for any brick-and-mortar store. No one is checking to see if Random House has the right to publish the latest Danielle Steele title. Remember, there are more than 5 million titles listed in Amazon's database, and probably 2 million or so are in print. Can you imagine how much work it would be to check every one? Even a smallish bookstore usually carries 5,000 titles or more. Still a lot of work.

Why are we assuming that Amazon should check ebook publishers for the right to publish? And if they do have this responsibility, how does a publisher reassure Amazon that it has the rights? File documentation? A contract? What?

It is certainly possible that the ebook environment will make it so easy to sell illicit copies of ebook titles that retailers will have this responsibility foisted upon them -- essentially raising a barrier to entry for new retailers (not what the ebook market needs, IMO). But until this happens, I don't think that Amazon or anyone else has a responsibility to check that the publisher has the rights it needs to publish any particular ebook.

Kent




------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------
Post a message:   ebook-community [[at]] *
Unsubscribe:      ebook-community-unsubscribe [[at]] *
Switch to digest: ebook-community-digest [[at]] *
Switch to normal: ebook-community-normal [[at]] *
Put mail on hold: ebook-community-nomail [[at]] *
Administrator:    ebook-community-owner [[at]] *

(* == yahoogroups.com)
-------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ebook-community/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:ebook-community-fullfeatured-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ebook-community-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/