Plagiarism on Amazon

[sr71plt]

Just not in the way we'd want.... Here's what arrived in my email after my last ten reviews (and there were no url's in my reviews):


At first I thought it was just a matter of their software seeing a repeated review as possible spam. Then I went to the customer discussion section on the product page and discovered that if I used the words "stolen" "plagiarist" or "literotica," my comments wouldn't post. I guess those are now keywords associated with my user account and filtered from my reviews; so Ron Mexico can cut, paste, and sell all the stories he can steal, but I'm not allowed to cut and paste in my efforts to thwart this criminal.

I tried the feedback option, but to use that, I'd actually have to buy the product. It makes me so angry, I've actually started using emogees.

Amazon seems to be very restrictive about that across the board. I tried to write a review of a mainstream poetry book with what was obviously very sensual poetry that couldn't be characterized as anything but that--and nothing I could write was accepted by Amazon.

 

[Combat323]

Futility

Sent Amazon a very long, detailed, and polite email with URLs for 40+ Ron Mexico stories. They did take the time to answer, but their response made it clear that they'll ignore everything except official complaints from the actual authors:

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble you're having with this.

If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide Amazon.com's copyright agent the written information specified below. This procedure is exclusively for notifying Amazon.com and its affiliates that your copyrighted material has been infringed.

- An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest;

- A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed upon;

- A description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site;

- Your address, telephone number, and e-mail address;

- A statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;

- A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

Amazon.com's Copyright Agent for notice of claims of copyright infringement on its site can be reached as follows:

Copyright Agent
Amazon.com Legal Department
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
Fax: (206) 266-7010
E-mail: copyright@amazon.com

I wonder what would happen if everyone who read this emailed the above address and requested forms or links to materials to put together their DMCA complaint against Ron Mexico?

 

[sr71plt]

That makes sense, though. They don't have the time or clairvoyance to get into she said/he said haggles. It's the same position the U.S. courts take. Both will take proof of a formal copyright registration. Short of that, proving who had what first is a daunting task. And if they just deleted any material that was in dispute, system gamesters would be hitting them with claims of prior ownership of perfectly legitimate book holdings.

For Literotica authors, the best response remains to publish it yourself somehow to Amazon and other outlets first and only publish it here after it's run its market course. This both gives you firsties on benefiting from it and gives you obvious evidence to show Amazon (prior publication with Amazon) when/if someone else tries to rip it off and put it on Amazon. Amazon has quickly accepted that from my publisher in the past. (Of course Amazon will delete it if they know you are offering it for free anywhere.)

 

[Swilly]

I understand why they need to use some caution here, because it would be simple to screw over a lot of legitimate authors. However, if they realize that a particular "author" has ripped off even a single story, they really should shut that person's account and offerings down immediately.

 

[JKendallDane]

I understand why they need to use some caution here, because it would be simple to screw over a lot of legitimate authors. However, if they realize that a particular "author" has ripped off even a single story, they really should shut that person's account and offerings down immediately.

^This one^

IN SPADES!

 

[sr71plt]

Just like the U.S. courts, they'll do that with proof of ownership (and, as I posted, if you've already published it at Amazon, they'll take down ripoffs by others). Having posted it to Literotica isn't proof it's yours.

In this Mexico case, though, once they've deleted a couple, it certainly should be enough evidence that the rest are bogus (or at least that the perpetrator is a scumbag) for everything to be zeroed out.

 

[Combat323]

This means war!

When a couple of Ron Mexico's ebooks disappeared from Amazon, I thought we were finally seeing progress. Now they're back with a publication date of May 5, 2015 and without my negative review attached.

I applaud Amazon for being so author-friendly, and I suppose I even have to tip my hat to Ron Mexico for rising above the laziness of a thief for long enough to take his offerings down and then re-post them in order to strip off the one-star reviews. I suppose I'll have to redouble my efforts until this gnat is smashed.

 

[Laurel]

When a couple of Ron Mexico's ebooks disappeared from Amazon, I thought we were finally seeing progress. Now they're back with a publication date of May 5, 2015 and without my negative review attached.

I applaud Amazon for being so author-friendly, and I suppose I even have to tip my hat to Ron Mexico for rising above the laziness of a thief for long enough to take his offerings down and then re-post them in order to strip off the one-star reviews. I suppose I'll have to redouble my efforts until this gnat is smashed.

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555

 

[Combat323]

Thumbing his nose.

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555

That link has useful information, but the process is infuriatingly long.

So, now Mr. Mexico has changed the title of one of his books to "Wasting Your Time" (Story about a hater). It's actually a cut-and-paste of "The Executioner" from the BDSM Category. The new title is a message to me regarding how easy it is for him to republish with a slightly different title and strip away my reviews.

Actually, it's a message to us all from Ron Mexico. He's saying it's not worth the effort to slow him down. He doesn't view himself as a thief.

The unstated part of the message is that he has noticed, and he's had to react to my repeated one-star reviews. Now, if there were only a couple more people reviewing his offerings.... You do have to log in using an account that has made purchases on Amazon, but you don't have to use your true name on the reviews. A handful of people writing just a few short reviews each day could really make a difference

 

[Combat323]

Turning Point?

I just sent the following email to copyright@amazon.com. I'm hoping Amazon won't be happy that they're selling a work that Smashwords and Barnes and Noble are offering for free.

Amazon quite obviously doesn't care that "Ron Mexico" sells stories copied from Literotica.com as his own, but what if they're available for free at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords? Such is the case with "Reluctant Wife Tied Up Then Taken," which was originally published as "Dominating Vanessa" by Audrey Black.

Smashwords – Dominating Vanessa (Reluctant BDSM Romance) – a book by Audrey Black https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/285378

Dominating Vanessa (Reluctant BDSM Romance)
Available in: NOOK Book (eBook).
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dominating-vanessa-audrey-black/1114620734


I understand the need to protect legitimate authors from false copyright claims, but aren't your customers also a consideration? I am posting this information to the Literotica forum and sending a private message to Audrey Black.

If anyone at Amazon took ten minutes to look into Ron Mexico, they'd easily determine that he's never written an original story in his life.

 

[sr71plt]

The effort is laudable, even if it's unlikely anyone can get ahead of guys like Ron Mexico (I went through the same "he's stolen them" review routine to Amazon on Ron Mexico a few months ago--and he's back with the same books that were deleted then). At the same time, the probable end result of this should be kept in mind by any who are themselves publishing at Amazon. Amazon isn't going to put a lot of effort into stopping this for the same avoiding "she said/he said" reasons the U.S. courts respond only to formal copyrights (and has, in fact, responded to near zero of those in the book world). So, the logical upshot of rattling Amazon's cage a lot is that they will just zero out on, first, accepting individual submissions at all, and then, eventually, on accepting submissions from publishers who aren't vetted as mainstream.

Really, there are (if you aren't buying my "publish it at Amazon first yourself" method) only two "win" situations for anyone not wanting their stories to be ripped off and published by someone else at Amazon. One is don't publish them on the Internet for free read to begin with (right there, a U.S. court is going to snort at your attempts to protect it anyway) and two is to formally copyright it and go through the still-expensive suit process (and in doing so, you'd be a pioneer because practically no one is trying the route). The internet being what it is, the day after you won such a suit, someone else in Lower Slobovia will republish it all over again.

I'm also a little ambivalent on seeing outrage over this on the Literotica forum, seeing as how theft and reposting of images and news reports is tolerated on the forum, despite the forum rules against it. (Laurel herself isn't getting permission to post all of those cat photos, I'm willing to bet.) There's little functional difference in what Ron Mexico is doing at Amazon and what Scouries and Trysail, for instance, do with images here on the forum--the only difference is in the sort of reward they are going after with their copyright violations. Pushing the "report" button on them here in keeping with the forum rules rarely does anything.

 

[sr71plt]

And all those images reproduced here are being done so by link--including all of your cat photos? All those photos Scouries posts. All those full or nearly full repostings of news articles? I'm betting not.

 

[sr71plt]

But, since you seem to be reading this thread, I have a suggestion on an elegant solution you might try. Literotica is functioning as a publisher here. An elegant, effective solution for all (except the thief) I think to the problem of Lit. author's works being stolen from here and published to Amazon would be for you to contact Amazon as a major publisher and see if they would agree to letting you identify to them material that was published to Literotica before it was submitted to Amazon for publishing. Then Amazon could just pull the identifiably stolen material and there would be minimal, if any, hassle all around. It would both serve the Literotica community and end a lot of Amazon's headaches and potential bad publicity.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I have a Naoko Smith account at Amazon so I went in and clicked on a couple of stories to say your reviews were helpful, and left one star reviews to reinforce yours.

I will try to do this as often as I can, and on any other titles identified. I don't have very much free time, so links provided regularly would be very helpful.

 

[Laurel]

I have a Naoko Smith account at Amazon so I went in and clicked on a couple of stories to say your reviews were helpful, and left one star reviews to reinforce yours.

I will try to do this as often as I can, and on any other titles identified. I don't have very much free time, so links provided regularly would be very helpful.

The problem is, as Manu posted here:
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555

is:

From the research that we've been doing, it looks like Amazon has a system of "copyright strikes". Amazon keeps a record of how many DMCA complains each author/publisher account has received. If an account reaches a certain number of DMCA complaints (strikes), the account will be banned and the author/publisher will not be paid for any unpaid earnings.
[...]
DMCA complaints are the only type of action that counts as a copyright strike. Amazon does not apply strikes based on random customer complaints, comment board complaints, etc. DMCA is the only type of complaint that Amazon recognizes.

 

[NaokoSmith]

The problem is, as Manu posted here:
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555

is:

I know that Amazon won't take these books down as a result of the reviews, but at least customers will be warned and Ron Mexico won't sell well. I know he will pop up again as Bob Venezuela. Hopefully if someone spots it, we can sometimes one-star review and put customers off. If this happens often enough maybe Amazon will start to get a bad reputation for selling plagiarised material and think again.

Some of these authors are probably not posting at the moment and may not realise, may not take action themselves.

I'm not in danger myself - nobody ever plagiarised any of my werewolf in a condom stories! but I would like to do a little to support fellow writers getting credit for their own work.


I think some of my reviews may get refused for the reasons Combat323 gives below, which I didn't read before. If I get a moment later, I'll try to think of a wording we could all use and paste it in here. I'll also tick to say any reviews which made it through are 'Helpful'.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I've had another idea about how to tackle this.

Perhaps a Facebook campaign that highlights how Amazon's policies allow plagiarism, while other sites like Smashwords do much more to combat it.

If enough people circulated this, and it looked like it was going to affect Amazon's profits and image, they would be more likely to make their policy on plagiarism stronger. Especially if the media pick up on it.

I wouldn't be able to start this off myself as I have a very low FB profile, I hardly ever go on my Naoko Smith persona there at the moment. I would be very happy to go back on and circulate if anyone-else does this, though.

 

[sr71plt]

If enough people circulated this, and it looked like it was going to affect Amazon's profits and image, they would be more likely to make their policy on plagiarism stronger. Especially if the media pick up on it.

I posted to this idea before. On a smaller scale--finding someone with clout at Amazon and working with/at them directly--can and has worked. Excessica, a publisher of several of us posting to Literotica, tackles Amazon directly and with some public campaigning and has gotten changes. (Amazon deleted two of my eXcessica books, for instance, and the publisher got them reinstated--yet another example of the publisher doing it, not the author.)

But a big-time campaign against them, I suggest, is just going to have them dropping independent and small-publisher erotica completely--and thieves will still be stealing the material and publishing it somehow on their own. It will become irritating and PR troubling to them while it doesn't, in fact, rank very high in their profit picture.

Reality on the erotica is that the mainstream is publishing more of it and consumers are reaching a saturation point. (The wave I've written about before in opportunity in the erotica market is pretty much gone--people's Kindles and Nooks are stuffed with erotica they haven't read yet and so much more of it is being produced now than when the opportunity wave was high.) Thus, if publishing erotica from independents and small-publishers becomes a thorn in Amazon's side, it will just drop it as an offering.

We all lose then. It won't stop the theft; it will just stop the publishing opportunity (although authors shouldn't have their points of sale all in the Amazon basket anyway).

The major point here, though, is that publishers like eXcessica and Smashwords are stepping up to doing something. They aren't just sitting on their hands, denying any responsibility (now--years ago Literotica was letting its authors assume Literotica stepped up to the bat for them), and cashing the checks.

The other major point is for authors to accept that the responsibility for putting their work on the open Internet for free is theirs. It has a high risk of being stolen and turned to a bit of profit (if you don't do that first yourself) by someone else, and it's a game of Whack-a-Mole to get it removed. If you can't live with the risk and the rip off, don't post it for free-use on the Internet. There's no savior for you out there and if you didn't obtain a formal U.S. copyright, there's no legal recourse for you in the U.S. either and filling out a DMCA (although it might work) is pure bluff (in addition to identifying the real you unless you've managed to build a cutout you).

 

[sr71plt]

I'm happy to let folks parse what each of us has posted. I trust they will note that you're being highly selective on what parts of my posts to respond to.

I'll just note that I've repeatedly referred to publishers doing what you say they can't do (while you deny you're a publisher anyway, even though you select, format, release, and profit from online publication of fiction works).

Also, contrary to your declaration, not even my publishers have my real name (two of my publishers have accounts at Literotica--Selena Kitt and Sabb. Go ahead and ask them) and royalties are handled through several levels of cutouts or, in the case of eXcessica, not taken at all.

Apparently you just haven't done in publishing what others are doing. And I get that you don't want to do anything in this Whack-a-Mole process of trying to protect your author's works. I've noted that it is a never-ending and not too satisfactory an activity. This at least clears of the air of all those years of forum posters saying all they needed to do was apprise the Web site they were being ripped off and the Web site would go to bat for them--an assertion that never seemed to be corrected by the Web site in all those years.

Of course you can't legally give support. Unless the author or publisher has filed for formal copyright, there is nothing that legally can be done by anyone anyway. It's all bluff, moral suasion, and customer support PR. Other publishers are lending their authors support in other ways, though. They aren't just washing their hands while cashing the checks for their part of the bargain.

 

[lovecraft68]

@Laurel, if you pop back in.

You do not hold copyright and are not a publisher in your eyes, although technically you could be considered one.

But my question is could you approach amazon-or other sites, but amazon seems the most stubborn in order to continue to benefit from theft- as saying the stories were posted to your site, your business and re-posted without your permission by people trying to profit off of what was put on your site?

I only ask because in the case of many of Mexico's books and others they are picking up stories that are very old and odds are the authors have fallen off the map so there will never be a complaint from the actual author.

 

[sr71plt]

Which is no different from what I suggested in post #64, which was brushed aside with an irrelevant response to what I was suggesting.

 

[litfan10]

@Laurel, if you pop back in.

You do not hold copyright and are not a publisher in your eyes, although technically you could be considered one.

But my question is could you approach amazon-or other sites, but amazon seems the most stubborn in order to continue to benefit from theft- as saying the stories were posted to your site, your business and re-posted without your permission by people trying to profit off of what was put on your site?

I only ask because in the case of many of Mexico's books and others they are picking up stories that are very old and odds are the authors have fallen off the map so there will never be a complaint from the actual author.

A wonderful thought LC, but it is very clear as far as the site is concerned that it is the author's responsibility if s/he decides to post stories here.

We have two choices really - (1.) don't post here. or (2.) protect our work ourselves by publishing elsewhere first or being vigilant and submit complaints ourselves.

Sadly, alwayswantedto was right to pull all his stories when he left in order to protect his stories in the future and even then look at how many people still had the ability to pull his stories up even after they were gone. The Internet is a very dangerous place for intellectual property.

 

[lovecraft68]

This whole thing is a disgrace simply from the angle that amazon is more than capable of screening books and catching stolen work before it sees light of day, but doesn't bother then has no problem with allowing it and making money from it

The fact Turner still has an account after having 290 books removed says all there is to say about how "concerned" amazon is with stolen material

 

[lovecraft68]

A wonderful thought LC, but it is very clear as far as the site is concerned that it is the author's responsibility if s/he decides to post stories here.

We have two choices really - (1.) don't post here. or (2.) protect our work ourselves by publishing elsewhere first or being vigilant and submit complaints ourselves.

Sadly, alwayswantedto was right to pull all his stories when he left in order to protect his stories in the future and even then look at how many people still had the ability to pull his stories up even after they were gone. The Internet is a very dangerous place for intellectual property.

You know a year or so ago, I was thinking of doing an incest anthology on SW and including other authors here and working out a way to pay them. I approached AWT about it and he told me to pick any two stories from his list that I wanted and use them and he wanted nothing in return, just to give credit to an author name he supplied to me.

Things got crazy in real life and I never followed up on the project. I still have the two stories in word on my lap top and thought about using one in an upcoming anthology of my own stories, but at this point don't want to risk people thinking I lifted it as he is not around to say I had permission.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Ooops, while I was logged in to Amazon as Naoko Smith to do reviews of plagiarised porn (all of which were accepted with a graceful: "Thank you for your helpful review of Ron Mexico's Two Slags Stole a Story and Laughed All the Way to the Piggy Bank") I responded to an email for my real name and went on to review some bath jelly stuff I bought for Piglet the other day. That's going to look good among my reviews of other Amazon smut