One thing to note is that if you're not on Amazon, your book will still be on Amazon. Cory Doctorow points out[0] that their copyright detection systems only de

One thing to note is that if you're not on Amazon, your book will still be on Amazon. Cory Doctorow points out[0] that their copyright detection systems only detect reuploads of on-platform books, and people scamming Audible with duplicates of books are rampant. I suspect this is part of why there isn't a huge contingent of angry authors jumping ship, because they can't reliably deny Amazon their work anyway. You're supposed to be able to just tell platforms "no, take this down". That comes from DMCA 512, that thing that indie creators absolutely hate because its far more useful as a censorship tool than for copyright enforcement[1]. If someone else reuploads your book to Amazon you have to actually find that reupload, buy it to validate that it is your work, take it down (and dox yourself in the process), and then repeat, forever. Outright infringement isn't the only scam either - ghostwriting and reselling lightly-edited GPT-3 copy[2] is also rampant on the platform, and there's even people selling courses on how to resell fake books[3]. This may eventually destroy Amazon's brand reputation, but it takes a long time to fall down the Trust Thermocline[4] when you're a giant like Amazon. The $10 royalty punishment makes absolutely no sense to me and I do not understand what the hell Amazon's motive is there. Except perhaps to bluff-charge indie writers into devaluing their work ahead of time. It reminds me of how Apple pushed for $0.99 songs for so long that the RIAA was willing to go DRM-free just to be able to charge more for popular singles. Except Amazon is also really, really pro-DRM, and so is the rest of the traditional publishing industry, which is running the same grift Amazon is at a different stage of production. [0] https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-available-on-audible-83cb182f2f91 https://doctorow.medium.com/why-none-of-my-books-are-availab... https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audiblegate https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/07/audible-exclusive/#audibl... [1] If the particular indie creator in question is making fanart, then the latter feels like the former, even though the law sides against fan artists. [2] Which is just infringement with extra steps, assuming that GPT-3 was trained on your original work and is regurgitating it [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw [4] https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115317862981632 https://twitter.com/garius/status/1588115317862981632