4 ms·

Perhaps a bit less dramatic: middlemen (except in egregious cases) are not considered guilty. They're just middlemen. Amazon is not a bookseller, they're simply

Perhaps a bit less dramatic: middlemen (except in egregious cases) are not considered guilty. They're just middlemen. Amazon is not a bookseller, they're simply selling website, payment handling, stocking, even book printing ... services to the real bookseller, and that real bookseller is the one infringing copyright. We just need to tighten what would be reasonable standard for middlemen to assure copyright is not violated.

dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
> We just need This "just" hasn't happened for several years, so what makes you think anyone will do anything about it?
buran77 4y ago
I guess it all depends on how interested someone is in the specific problem. The war on drugs makes a mule an accomplice. The war on piracy makes a hosting platform an accomplice. Particularly when they are aware of the issue and don't act. Since Amazon would clearly act if their own products or brands were impacted it stands to reason that not only are they complicit in committing that crime and providing assistance but also that they abuse their position to selectively enforce rules. Of course there's no incentive to do anything to change this particularly in lobby driven parts of the world where the benefit of the company is paramount. After all the company is the one filling the pockets of legislators and judges.
jfim 4y ago
You could apply the same logic to the pirate bay, they're just providing a place to browse torrent files but they're not hosting any of the infringing files themselves, just metadata about them. The issue with Amazon is not that their services can enable copyright violation (any copy machine can do that), but that even if they're notified of such violations, they don't act on them in a decisive way. I doubt anyone would really complain about book piracy if authors could say "hey this book is in print from so and so publisher, so don't allow third parties other than the publisher to sell it" and Amazon acted on it. Or if authors had a way to say "hey Amazon I'm the owner of this ISBN so other formats for this book need my approval to be listed."
garyfirestorm 4y ago
Just exactly like those warez bb forums. We are not responsible for the posts there’s no pirated material on our website.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Under 17 USC 501, if Amazon are selling, distributing, or importing works that are infringing, they're subject to civil and criminal liabilities. Amazon also operate a Print On Demand service, which would make them the publisher as well, for PoD products: https://www.amazon.com/Print-Demand-Book-Publishing-Self-Publishing-ebook/dp/B001CL585I https://www.amazon.com/Print-Demand-Book-Publishing-Self-Pub...
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Erm ... I'm not sure about PoD. The link is not about Amazon itself providing the service, though I suspect it may.
JohnHaugeland 4y ago
Not sure why you believe this. It's 100% false. If someone knowingly sells fraudulent or counterfeit goods, no, they're not "just a middleman."

dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago

> We just need This "just" hasn't happened for several years, so what makes you think anyone will do anything about it?

buran77 4y ago

I guess it all depends on how interested someone is in the specific problem. The war on drugs makes a mule an accomplice. The war on piracy makes a hosting platform an accomplice. Particularly when they are aware of the issue and don't act. Since Amazon would clearly act if their own products or brands were impacted it stands to reason that not only are they complicit in committing that crime and providing assistance but also that they abuse their position to selectively enforce rules. Of course there's no incentive to do anything to change this particularly in lobby driven parts of the world where the benefit of the company is paramount. After all the company is the one filling the pockets of legislators and judges.

jfim 4y ago

You could apply the same logic to the pirate bay, they're just providing a place to browse torrent files but they're not hosting any of the infringing files themselves, just metadata about them. The issue with Amazon is not that their services can enable copyright violation (any copy machine can do that), but that even if they're notified of such violations, they don't act on them in a decisive way. I doubt anyone would really complain about book piracy if authors could say "hey this book is in print from so and so publisher, so don't allow third parties other than the publisher to sell it" and Amazon acted on it. Or if authors had a way to say "hey Amazon I'm the owner of this ISBN so other formats for this book need my approval to be listed."

garyfirestorm 4y ago

Just exactly like those warez bb forums. We are not responsible for the posts there’s no pirated material on our website.

dredmorbius 4y ago

Under 17 USC 501, if Amazon are selling, distributing, or importing works that are infringing, they're subject to civil and criminal liabilities. Amazon also operate a Print On Demand service, which would make them the publisher as well, for PoD products: https://www.amazon.com/Print-Demand-Book-Publishing-Self-Publishing-ebook/dp/B001CL585I https://www.amazon.com/Print-Demand-Book-Publishing-Self-Pub...

dredmorbius 4y ago
Erm ... I'm not sure about PoD. The link is not about Amazon itself providing the service, though I suspect it may.

JohnHaugeland 4y ago

Not sure why you believe this. It's 100% false. If someone knowingly sells fraudulent or counterfeit goods, no, they're not "just a middleman."