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Amazon Delaying Public Domain Submissions On Kindle

Posted by kdawson on from the cultural-gatekeepers dept.

John B. Hare writes "Many publishers of public domain content on the Kindle are being turned away for reasons that Amazon declines to clarify. In the past two weeks any publisher posting a public domain book (or a book that appears to be a such) has received the message 'Your book is currently under review by the Kindle Operations team as we are trying to improve the Kindle customer experience. Please check back in 5 business days to see if your book was published to the store.' Amazon claims that this is a quality control issue, apparently believing that readers can't figure out on their own that a five-page Kindle book for $9.99 is a rip-off, or that yet another Kindle edition of 'Pride and Prejudice' is pointless. This was supposed to be the point of user feedback and the Kindle return policy: users can quickly decide what the best choice is, and if they don't like it, back out without any harm done." Read on for details of this reader's interaction with Amazon on the subject of public domain Kindle submissions.
I own and run one of the primary contributors of new public domain e-texts on the web: sacred-texts.com. I am (was?) in the process of converting all of the 2,000+ e-books at sacred-texts into Kindle editions. I use a homebrew preflight Kindle filter to construct the Kindle binary from my master files, which we have invested nearly a million dollars into creating. We spend thousands a month in-house doing legal clearance, scanning, OCRing, and proofing, often by domain experts. So we are hardly a fly-by-night operation. In fact, many of the PD texts floating around on the Internet and on the Kindle were originally done at sacred-texts at great investment of labor and time. Our Kindle return rate is close to zero.

I just received the following email from Amazon:

Dear Publisher,

We're working on a policy and procedure change to fix a customer experience problem caused by multiple copies of public domain titles being uploaded by a multitude of publishers. For an example of this problem, do a search on "Pride and Prejudice" in the Kindle Store. The current situation is very confusing for customers as it makes it difficult to decide which 'Pride and Prejudice' to choose. As a result, at this time we are not accepting additional public domain titles through DTP, including the following:

The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ
The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ
Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry and Medieval Mysticism
The History of the Knights Templar by Nicolas Notovitch
...

If you believe that we have wrongly identified this title as a public domain title, and you are the copyright holder or are authorized to sell it by the copyright holder, then please reply to title-submission@amazon.com with appropriate documentation of your e-book rights.

Thank you, Amazon.com

One key point is that Amazon has applied this ban completely non-selectively. Established publishers such as myself and others who have never had any quality control issues whatsoever, and give good value for the price, have all been tarred with the broad brush of "Public Domain Publisher — do not post."

By banning new public domain books from the Kindle, they are making an implicit decision as to which books people should read. You can argue that "you can get these texts anywhere," but by excluding high-quality Kindle books from the nascent Kindle marketplace, Amazon is implicitly deciding what is a valid part of our culture and what isn't. This trend does not bode well for the future of e-books.

11 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. 1984? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This move is probably related to the whole 1984 incident, which was caused by someone uploading and selling content that they didn't possess the rights to. The whole episode was a huge embarrassment for Amazon, and I can certainly see why they're being more diligent in this area.

    1. Re:1984? by mh1997 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Dear Publisher,

      We're working on a policy and procedure change to fix a customer experience problem caused by multiple copies of public domain titles being uploaded by a multitude of publishers. For an example of this problem, do a search on "Pride and Prejudice" in the Kindle Store. The current situation is very confusing for customers as it makes it difficult to decide which 'Pride and Prejudice' to choose.

      It's about time. I own a Kindle 2 and hate searching thru the garbage before I find the correct title.

    2. Re:1984? by natehoy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And the publisher who put "1984" and "Animal Farm" on Amazon's marketplace claimed they WERE Public Domain. Except they turned out to be wrong.

      Amazon was roundly criticized for it, and their clumsy handling of it. Now Amazon needs to make sure that any works that they publish as Public Domain REALLY ARE Public Domain. They can't recall the works - they promised they wouldn't. But if they are not authorized to sell it then they end up selling it, things could get really ugly.

      I sincerely doubt that Amazon is involved in a black helicopter conspiracy to keep anyone from reading any public domain work they damned well please on their Kindle, for the very simple reason that there is no benefit to Amazon for doing so.

      However, they do have an obligation to copyright holders and their own stakeholders to make sure that anything they claim as public domain is, in fact, public domain. They can't afford another mistake.

      And they also have a vested interest in making sure that people can find a single, well-formatted, vetted version of each book. If I search for (as the example states) "Pride and Prejudice" and I find dozens of copies of it, I'm going to think that the Amazon bookstore is a jumbled confused mess. Especially if I have to download a dozen of them to find one that is in acceptably readable format for the Kindle.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  2. Self interest by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The article would be more interesting - if it were an actual article rather than a rant about how Amazon won't grant them unlimited access to Amazon's customers. (Which is their right dammit! They've spent a million dollars!)

  3. A couple points by wiredog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. Why don't you sell the books yourself?

    2.One key point is that Amazon has applied this ban completely non-selectively.

    This seems to me like a good thing. They've identified a problem, too many public domain titles that are dupes (Slashdot had a dupe problem too). They are apparently working on a solution.

    Now if, in a few months, they are still blocking all public domain book, then there's a problem.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
  4. Public Domain by Drunken+Buddhist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By banning new public domain books from the Kindle, they are making an implicit decision as to which books people should read. You can argue that "you can get these texts anywhere," but by excluding high-quality Kindle books from the nascent Kindle marketplace, Amazon is implicitly deciding what is a valid part of our culture and what isn't. This trend does not bode well for the future of e-books.

    Actually they're really making a decision on which books they wish to deliver on their service, paid or unpaid. Honestly I can get behind Amazon on this as the appropriate policy to have in this situation is broad-based denial to avoid exactly what they're stating; multiple copies of public domain works, whose redundancy will create a negative user experience, and to which the public (not an individual) holds the copyright. And in this situation, if the work isn't being provided for free (as a public domain work), the potential for abuse is extraordinary. I would chide Amazon for not providing a dispute process based on the quality of the supplied work, or an alternate pricing scheme for businesses such as the OP's, but I do not fault them for this policy in general.

    --
    -1, Disagree is not a valid option. Troll, Flamebait and Offtopic are not a substitute.
  5. have you tried? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Have you tried contacting Amazon about this to clarify that you're not simply a "fly-by-night" publisher? Or was your first reaction to start posting this around the net to illustrate how Amazon is treating you unfairly. I can understand their position, especially considering the issues that they've had to deal with in the recent past. It wouldn't surprise me that they're throwing out the blanket "ban", but that they're also more than willing to work with the larger publishers as soon as they step forward. So I suggest doing just that -- step forward and clearly explain yourself and your position to Amazon directly instead of whining to the web.

  6. Shelf Space by deemen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Brick and mortar stores have something called "shelf space". Having 80 different copies of Pride and Prejudice in a real store wouldn't make any sense. This is simply Amazon doing the same thing, but online. Just because they have unlimited digital shelf space, doesn't mean they HAVE to carry your book. The user experience comes first, and if I walked into a brick and mortar store and was met with 80 different publishings of Pride and Prejudice, I wouldn't be so happy either. So quit bitching, Amazon is entirely within its rights.

  7. Re:And? by fractalVisionz · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, the PD books on Amazon are free. However, there have been an ever increasing amount of duplicates submitted by 3rd parties that have a price tag. They are just trying to remove the duplicates that have the price tag to provide a better user experience.

    Please see Pride and Prejudice kindle store search. The first PD copy that comes up is free, the rest charge. That is not a good user experience as the free one is just as good as the rest (or should be).

    I completely agree with this policy, as it makes it easier for me, a user, to determine what book I should get. I don't think they should limit the different editions of books, but seriously, how many public domain books have multiple editions, like super deluxe edition with forward by Abraham Lincoln himself. Not many.

  8. Re:IP industry would rather you didn't know PD exi by Sloppy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    BTW, another take on the same idea: PD compicates DRM. It is imperative that Amazon makes sure that none of their technical measures and other barriers to interoperability, never get applied to PD works. And even if they don't apply the DRM itself, they still might necessarily do things that inhibit access to PD stuff.

    Why does this matter? Because DMCA does not prohibit bypassing DRM. Saying that it does, is an over-generalization. It only prohibits circumventing DRM on copyrighted works without the copyright holder's permission. You can legally bypass DRM on PD works. You can legally distribute and traffic in DRM-defeating tools, provided you can show that it's primarily intended and marketed for accessing PD stuff. And Amazon and the Kindle are big enough names, that just publishing one book is enough to generate a tools market for people who want to read that book.

    One might think it's simple enough, to just not set the evil bit for PD works. And as far as the bottommost DRM layer itself, it probably is. But no DRM system lives in isolation. If any user is ever allowed to access any file on a Kindle, that justifies users and developers to peel back 99% of the Kindle's shittiness.

    I think this basic idea -- situations where DRM is legally attackable (either by PD or by copyright holders authorizing it) -- is the one flaw in DMCA that can lead to the eventual legal (not just technical) defeat of many DRM systems.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  9. Overreacting a bit, are we? by tfmachad · · Score: 4, Funny

    "By banning new public domain books from the Kindle, they are making an implicit decision as to which books people should read. You can argue that "you can get these texts anywhere," but by excluding high-quality Kindle books from the nascent Kindle marketplace, Amazon is implicitly deciding what is a valid part of our culture and what isn't. This trend does not bode well for the future of e-books."

    Wow! Who died and made this book selling company the sole gatekeeper to all human knowledge?