Author Topic: KDP select exclusivity and piracy  (Read 2712 times)

Lysmata Debelius

KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« on: May 20, 2019, 05:59:01 PM »
A writer in one of the other writing groups I'm on has had several of her books pirated. Her books are in KDP Select and KU. She's worried that the fact that the books are available elsewhere, she'll get in trouble with Amazon because of the exclusivity agreement. Does that happen? Does Amazon challenge people for breaking exclusivity, even if the books in question are pirated and outside of their control?
 

TimothyEllis

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Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2019, 06:01:01 PM »
I'd recommend an immediate msg to KDP, advising of the site and the books are there without permission.

It pre-empts KDP getting aggro, and may trigger Amazon to take action against the site themselves.

A lot of the sites though dont actually have the books, they just say they have to scam subscriptions.
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Lysmata Debelius

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2019, 06:07:52 PM »
Thanks! That sounds like very good advice. Also it creates a paper trail in case you need to prove anything.
 

notthatamanda

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2019, 08:24:19 PM »
Just tell her to be careful.  There was one site that "had" my book and said "click here to report piracy" or something like that.  They said they would happily take my book down, as soon as I filled out the form with all the personal information they wanted.  I declined.  Most of the sites don't have any books, they are just scams.
 
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LilyBLily

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2019, 10:55:47 PM »
My first book was supposedly available on YouTube! I had it taken down, but I'm fairly confident it's back up again. Amazon never let out a peep. Other books of mine have shown up on pirate sites, too.

As draconian and irrational as Amazon can be, I think it is well aware that piracy is out of our control.
 

Lysmata Debelius

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2019, 10:56:35 PM »
Youtube! That's a new one to me :) 
 

Ash

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #6 on: May 21, 2019, 12:56:38 AM »
I had my account suspended for a day because my catalog was uploaded to alphanovels.com. They pretty quickly gave it back to me, but I was due a 10K author bonus that month which was never paid. Plus I had a book around 200 rank that was climbing, and by the time I got my account back, the launch was destroyed.
 

LilyBLily

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #7 on: May 21, 2019, 12:59:15 AM »
I had my account suspended for a day because my catalog was uploaded to alphanovels.com. They pretty quickly gave it back to me, but I was due a 10K author bonus that month which was never paid. Plus I had a book around 200 rank that was climbing, and by the time I got my account back, the launch was destroyed.

That's horrible. Amazon is not merely "unfair." It is also a very skeevy business partner at times.
 

notthatamanda

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #8 on: May 21, 2019, 01:06:46 AM »
I had my account suspended for a day because my catalog was uploaded to alphanovels.com. They pretty quickly gave it back to me, but I was due a 10K author bonus that month which was never paid. Plus I had a book around 200 rank that was climbing, and by the time I got my account back, the launch was destroyed.

Oh that's just awful.
 

She-la-te-da

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2019, 10:05:43 PM »
Amazon seems to be able to tell most pirate sites, but people do get emails about books in KU and other sites. From what I've seen, if you email them back and say it's a pirate site and you've sent a DMCA, it's cool. Of course, sometimes it's not, but it can be fixed.

The thing with Amazon is they are running bots. The only real people doing anything tend to be ESL folks in other countries, who seem to act like bots. Half the time they don't know anything, which is why you have to reply to emails and keep at it until you hit an actual person who knows what's going on. So yeah, stuff happens. Doesn't make Amazon evil, just kind of dumb for expecting bots and barely-trained people to keep the shop working right.
I write various flavors of speculative fiction. This is my main pen name.

 

RPatton

Re: KDP select exclusivity and piracy
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2019, 10:56:06 PM »
The thing with Amazon is they are running bots. The only real people doing anything tend to be ESL folks in other countries, who seem to act like bots. Half the time they don't know anything, which is why you have to reply to emails and keep at it until you hit an actual person who knows what's going on. So yeah, stuff happens. Doesn't make Amazon evil, just kind of dumb for expecting bots and barely-trained people to keep the shop working right.

I've learned there are magic words. "I appreciate your help, but I would like this case number escalated. When can I expect to hear back from someone?"

All interactions are recorded. Whether they are reviewed is random. But in my experience, the word escalated or escalation gets things jump-started and moving quickly. (I assume there's a bot that scans all communication looking for the words escalated or escalation or escalate and dumped in the review queue. I know this is how a lot of CS departments work and imagine Amazon's isn't much different.)
 
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