Forum: Author Hangout

That sort of thing is going to extremely difficult for any self publishing platform to proactively prevent.

True, but most manage well by quickly dealing with complaints. Sadly, Amazon is extremely hard to get a response from, or action on, concerning stolen stories.

Go read some of the past threads about stories stolen from SOL showing up on Amazon. Lots of comments from people saying they complained to Amazon about finding pirated stories that aren't theirs.

To be fair, Ernest has always had a burr up him bum concerning Amazon (it's too long of a story to recount here). But I've never had any trouble getting them to pull complaints, while I've had serious trouble getting other sites to remove their 'published' stories after they arbitrarily decided to delete my account after complaining about their crappy services (SW anyone?).

That's why I'm still unable to physically remove one particular book from Amazon, as they decided that "Vincent Berg" is the actual author of the work, not the exact same "Vincent Berg" who's published with them since the book was first published with them.

That's SW's fault, not Amazon's.

Expecting any such platform to act on complaints not coming from the true author is at best foolish.

True. But they should respond quickly to complaints from authors who can prove they are the true authors. On a number of past occasions where I had stolen stories posted on Amazon I quickly provided them with clear evidence that I was the true author both via information where the stories were available on SOL and other sites as well as the ISBN numbers of where I had published them. However, it took Amazon a week to refuse to accept my complaint until AFTER I created an Amazon account and lodged a complaint through that account. Then when I did that they took another three weeks to respond to me and a further four weeks to remove the offending stories.

That sort of process and delay is totally unacceptable to anyone except Amazon management. Mind you I later got a complaining email from the thief bitching about Amazon not paying them the royalties from the sales of my stolen stories, and asking me to remove the complaint so they could get the money. Also, Amazon never sent me any of the royalties they collected from the sales of the books, either. I can only hope they refunded the money to the buyers, but there is no evidence of that, either.

Also, Amazon never sent me any of the royalties they collected from the sales of the books, either.

They never do, and there's zero indication they ever refund anyone's purchases either (as they have a long history of not refunding sales of cancelled books, for whatever reason.

True, but most manage well by quickly dealing with complaints. Sadly, Amazon is extremely hard to get a response from, or action on, concerning stolen stories.

They respond, in due course, but they'll literally sit on every complaint for two solid weeks before doing anything (and of course, they keep ALL any bogus sales they make during that period). Thus, it pays them to slow the process as much as they can, while benefiting no one besides them.

Ka Hmnd has had problems with Amazon and not caring about stolen stories.

As Ernest says, you've got to be able to authenticate your ownership. Luckily for most SOL authors, the original publication on SOL is enough proof to authenticate your ownership (assuming it predates any other publication, that is).