A Warning to all Authors: Your Book Could be PLAGIARIZED and Pirated on Amazon!!! (UPDATED)
A couple of weeks ago I discovered something shocking!
My book, “Death Penalty for a Ghost in China,” which was published online and intended to be circulated for free, had been stolen by two unknown entities and was being sold for profit on Amazon.
My book: “Death Penalty for a Ghost in China”
The book was published here on Medium:
As well as these other fine platforms:
However, it came to my attention some entity (a pirate, vampire, ghost, bot, who knows…) had created an Amazon seller account and was selling the book on Amazon under a… different… title… See the image below…
Even worse, I found another entity selling my book, on Amazon, UNDER THEIR NAME!
This entity has other titles for sale on Amazon, too. ALL WERE pilfered. (Books about cats, too! HAVE YOU NO SHAME!?!?!?! NOT THE CATS!!!!!!!!!)
The vampire stole the books from the fine and beautiful site https://www.free-ebooks.net/
All About Cats, by Tygo Tales
The Vampire’s bloodlet…
Amazing Cat Tales, by Max Diamond
The Vampire strikes again:
End of the Age: Final Deception, by Angela Kay
The Vampire’s Amazon deception:
https://www.amazon.com/End-Age-FinalDeception-morad-smadi-ebook/dp/B08BXYLL35
These authors, and me, we’re not the first victim of such vampires. Jamie Lendino tells of a similar harrowing tale and was fortunately able to have the vampire’s book purged. Read about it below:
I reported the illegal products to Amazon and endured two weeks of being sent automated replies requesting duplicate information, such as the name of the product, the name of the rights holder, even though ALL THAT info was previously supplied in my original report and was again clearly provided several times. When I asked for the matter to be escalated, all replies again were automated, again asked for previously submitted info. A couple of replies even somehow were addressed to me as “appealing” a copyright action.
I’m pretty sure the complaints went through AI and that a bot was replying.
So I phoned Amazon’s legal department only to have a voice menu recording say to “file a report online” (which I’d done) and then disconnect the call and offer NO HUMAN CONTACT OPTION.
Then I contacted customer service and was told once that the “issue would be escalated” and “I’d be contacted,” and I wasn’t. Then I contacted customer service again and was told by Ruhal that the matter “could not be escalated.”
I DON’T KNOW WHO WAS LYING TO ME, BUT I HOPE IT WASN’T RUHAL!!!!
Finally, I decided to escalate further and sent a link of this original article to Amazon’s PR department, requesting comment and asking these questions:
1) Do emails sent to copyright@amazon.com reach a human or are they sent to AI, or a bot?
2) Why doesn’t Amazon have an algorithm that can scan for plagiarism, previous publications of books online?
3) Is there any statement Amazon would like to make to authors, to assure them that their work is safe from piracy on Amazon and that their claims will be investigated and responded to by a human being? (Please feel free to cite any statistics you have regarding recouped royalties, the turnaround time for removal of infringing material, et cetera.)
As of this writing, Amazon’s Public Relations Department has not provided a response to any of these questions.
I also located the email addresses of a few senior-level executives at Amazon, and I copied and sent my correspondences with PR and the Legal Department to them. None replied.
However, eventually, someone or something took action, as the pilfered books were FINALLY REMOVED from Amazon.
Again, my book, “Death Penalty for a Ghost in China” was NEVER meant to be sold. It may be purchased from Google Books, but is mainly available for FREE distribution, and anyone is welcome to share, post, or read the book in its original form for free.
I understand authors selling their work and that’s their choice. But I put mine out for FREE because I feel art should be free and freely distributed.
However, don’t be a dick and change the fucking title of a book to YOUR NAME, claim credit for it, and SELL IT ON a mega-corporate site like AMAZON. That’s just fucking EVIL. That’s some fucking bloodsucking vampire shit. Anyone who does that should be headslapped, tarred and feathered and RUN OFF THE INTERNET and thrown into a septic tank. FUCK YOU, MORAD SMADI or whatever entity or lifeform or AI you are!
(I didn’t share those comments with the PR or Legal Dept, if you’re wondering. I’m sharing them here on Medium, though…)
Hopefully, in the future, Amazon will do a better job monitoring and screening for copyrighted, pirated content. Maybe they’ll have better AI software to screen for it. (Hey, Jeff Bezos, throw out a few more dollars on that one, please! I’ll buy you a beer if you do, I PROMISE!)
But really, for now, Amazon is too flooded with products and is unable to check their products thoroughly, so, for other authors out there, bloggers, anyone posting content online, BEWARE!
EDIT: Here’s a far better article by a far better writer. The article lists tools writers can use to track if others are using your content without permission.
Vampires exist.
IT ‘S UP TO YOU to periodically search for your content online, see where it’s gone. You never know whose fangs might be sucking blood from your brainchild’s neck…
