Re: Who Checks to See that the Publisher Has Rights (was Re: Amazon remotely deletes 1984)

> Amazon claiming they didn't realize that the recently-pulled books
> (1984, Atlas Shrugged) and older pulled books (Harry Potter) were
> illegal, seems a bit specious... these aren't obscure books with their
> copyrights tangled up in unclear inheritance laws. Two minutes of
> research can uncover who owns the rights to these books, and another
> two minutes can demand an ID check of the person offering them.
>

Since at least several of the books in question are legal for the  
country where the publisher has a contract and not legal in the US,  
your argument is completely pointless. The publisher had the legal  
right to publish the books in Lower Slobovia, just not to publish/sell  
them in the US. But Amazon sold the Kindle versions in the US.  
Problem. Had Amazon sold those Kindle versions only in Lower Slobovia,  
there would not have been a problem.

>> Nonsense. Amazon is NOT the publisher of Kindle ebooks.
>
> I'm willing to consider you might be right. Is there a legal
> definition of "publisher?" One that separates it from "company that
> formats the book for sale?"

Gotta say, I'm with Kent here. What Amazon does for Kindle format  
ebooks is far more similar to what a printer does than what a  
publisher does. The publisher acquires the book from the author. With  
the exception of self-published books, Amazon doesn't. The publisher  
edits, copyedits and finalizes the content. Amazon doesn't. The  
publisher contracts with a printer to produce that content in a  
readable form--a paper book. The publisher also contracts with Amazon  
to convert the publisher's formatted document into a format readable  
on the Kindle. The publisher is the publisher. Amazon is the  
"printer." Other ebooks don't happen to require a sole-source point  
for their format conversions. So what.  It doesn't make Amazon a  
publisher. There are companies which take a single document from a  
publisher and produce multiple formats (Overdrive?) which they the  
sell or distribute--doesn't make that service provider a publisher  
either.

dej

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