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

Textbooks? I'm on the side of the pirates, then.

[Seven Spirals]

Something bad was bound to happen to the folks who came up with the $300 textbook cabal.

How can they say these are fake?

[SuperKendall]

If you read through the article, one of the books was a used donated book ten years old.

How can anyone say if a ten year old book is counterfeit? That alone seems pretty suspicious.

It sure does end up looking like Amazon is simply shutting down people selling any used textbooks...

If I were an Amazon seller no way would I ship anything to the address and person mentioned in the article, though probably they will just switch to a new name and fake address...

Re:How can they say these are fake?

[Darinbob]

Amazon is most likely being handed a list of sellers by the publishing industry. Amazon on its own didn't go out on its own and investigate these book sellers.

Now some books may have a cover torn off them, intended for return as unsold copies. But did anyone investigate that this was the case, comparing a deliberately torn off cover versus an actual used book with wear and tear?

Also, some books make say "not for resale", but a label on a book is not necessarily enforceable legally. And there aren't enough "demo" books out there to really make a solid market out of them anyway.

Re:Textbooks? I'm on the side of the pirates, then

[iggymanz]

that's not even what this issue is about. it's about real textbooks printed for overseas by the same publishers who print the overpriced USA ones, because the schools support their cabal.

I say we make a law requiring textbooks to be sold domestically at the lowest price the overseas people can get them. what we have now is price gouging

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.

Re:counterfeit = not by the original rights holder

[EvilSS]

Maybe, but there are actual counterfeit copies of popular text books out there. These are printed overseas without the publisher's permission, usually full of OCR errors and with shitty bindings. For example: a fake copy of The Art of Electronics sent to EEVBlog by the real book's author. Here's another example a counterfeit copy of the DSM V . Textbooks are expensive, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that pirated copies would start coming in from Asia.

It's not the professor. It's the schools and

[aussersterne]

departments. I used to be a prof at a large university. One of the reasons I left academics was that I got tired of fighting the battle about textbooks in courses that I was required to teach (faculty divvied up the 100/200 courses, everyone had to do some).

I started out as a starry-eyed young prof trying to help my students by putting alternate sources of inexpensive textbooks on syllabi. We're talking textbooks at $2 vs. $120 on the used market. Saving students a lot of dough. But that go no-noed.

So I pulled it off the syllabus and started just making verbal announcements. That also got no-noed.

So I started just requiring an office hours visit first week of semester and telling students in office hours. That also got no-noed.

So I stopped requiring the textbook and sent them to the library for optional textbook reading. That also got no-noed.

I had serious ethical qualms about forcing students—about half of whom really oughtn't find a way to "afford" it—to spend $hundreds on things that were $nearly free and being forbidden from making it $totally free by just sending them to the library.

Everyone must buy the book, I was told. There's departmental and institutional revenue at stake, I was told. Nevermind that first-year college students from underprivileged backgrounds whose entire extended families were pulling together to help them through were dropping $1k a semester on $50-75 worth of books from used booksellers.

It's just one factor in the decisions that led me out of academics, but it's a very concrete one. It felt like a slimy industry after a while, more about conning money out of people (students, taxpayers, donors and endowers) than caring about the topics at hand.

But yeah, don't blame the profs.

Re:It's not the professor. It's the schools and

[omnichad]

But yeah, don't blame the profs.

Unless they're a textbook author.

Re:It's not the professor. It's the schools and

[Immerman]

As someone who spent a few years teaching college courses, I can't think of any group better qualified to write such a book, except possibly a really exceptional student. Knowing the subject is one thing - teaching it well is something else entirely.

I only had one professor that I know of who wrote a text book (computer science), and he made a point of making it available free online. Of course this was a greybeard Linux enthusiast (may his rest be joyous) at an edge-of-nowhere university who's mission statement involved creating opportunities for under-served populations. So not necessarily the sort of place representative of the industry.

Re:It's not the professor. It's the schools and

[UnknownSoldier]

Except the problem is that the silient majority IS part of the problem.

If EVERY prof said "Cut this shit out or we resign" the university / colleagues would change their tune.

But people aren't interested in rocking the boat to fix an broken system. :-/

Maybe next century we'll stop greed from running our universities.

Re:It's not the professor. It's the schools and

[serviscope_minor]

If EVERY prof said "Cut this shit out or we resign" the university / colleagues would change their tune.

Profs gotta eat too. If you have no social safety net that allows for that sort of ethical action then this is exactly the sort of thing that can happen. Being able to eat and make rent is almost always going to come top.

And when you say "every" you're not far off. Academia is hugely competitive with people devoting their life for the chance for a job when there's 10 times as many people as there are jobs.

Even if only half of them did that it would not take the universities long to refill.

Re:counterfeit = not by the original rights holder

[novakyu]

Here's my question: how much due diligence did they do, ensuring that they are not accidentally catching people selling legit international editions (published by someone properly licensed)? Those exist, and first-sale doctrine in those cases was upheld.

Re: Boohoo.

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, actually copyright does include control over importation. Itâ(TM)s a part of the distribution right at 17 USC 106(3), 602.

BUT, the distribution right is subject to (among other things) the âoefirst saleâ exception at 17 USC 109. The leading case on this is Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 568 U.S. 519 (2013), in which the Supreme Court held that lawfully made copies can be imported by anyone.

Re:counterfeit = not by the original rights holder

[Darinbob]

The first sale doctrine is considered a mortal enemy by the publishing industry, not to mention several other industries. The first sale doctrine gets in the way of profits, and if you get in the way of profits be prepared for a fight.