Sting on Amazon Booksellers Aims To Weed Out Counterfeit Textbooks, But Small Sellers Getting Hurt (cnbc.com)

Amazon upended the book industry more than two decades ago by bringing sales onto the web. Now, during the heart of the holiday shopping season, the company is wreaking havoc on used booksellers who have come to rely on Amazon for customers. From a report: In the past two weeks, Amazon has suspended at least 20 used book merchants for allegedly selling one or more counterfeit textbooks. They all received the same generic email from Amazon informing them that their account had been "temporarily deactivated" and reminding them that "the sale of counterfeit products on Amazon is strictly prohibited."

[...] The crackdown on textbook sellers stands out at a time when Amazon is dramatically stepping up its broader anti-counterfeiting efforts, suspending third-party sellers across all its popular categories. Unlike most suspensions, which tend to occur after complaints from consumers or from brand owners who are monitoring the site for counterfeits, these booksellers got caught up in what appears to be a coordinated sting operation.

Comments

Re:Boohoo.

[hazem]

Text books can cost $100+

Often much more. This is why in the classes I teach, I specifically choose books published under licenses like the Creative Commons. And if those aren't available for what I need, I'll "recommend" old versions of text books as a resource (e.g. "if you need more practice exercises, see ch 5 of ___, which you can get at the library or for about $10 used). Nobody needs to buy a brand new $200 "Intro to Statistics for Business" book, especially since they'll probably never look at it again. I also tend to draw from published papers and even well-written blogs.

I can create and assign my own problems and exam questions, so there's no need for rip-offs like Cengage.

It's a little more work on my part, but much more satisfying and a lot better value for my students.