Thread by @DavidGaughran

After #copypastecris, a lot of people are talking about what systems @AmazonKDP should have in place to clean up the Kindle Store.

I've been tracking this issue for years and I'm going to tell you a story which will explain why such talk is hasty. Because Amazon. Doesn't. Care.

I was the victim of piracy in 2012 - and I mean full-on piracy, where someone had ripped my entire book and published it on Amazon under their own publisher name. Using my name and cover, but under their own account so the royalties would go to them.

It was word-for-word the same book I had published myself on @AmazonKDP - so there was obviously zero plagiarism detection or anything like that. But that wasn't the biggest concern at all. This was far bigger than one author and one book, and Amazon's response was disturbing.

The person who had stolen my book and published it himself on Amazon was a guy based in Poland, and the company name he was publishing under was called Book On Demand Publishing - a typically generic name for a scammer operation.

This company hadn't just pirated my book. I discovered he had published over a HUNDRED THOUSAND titles, all of which appeared to be stolen. Take a moment to think about 100,000+ pirated books uploaded under one publisher account. And the system didn't flag anything.

Obviously, Amazon hadn't invested in the most basic security precautions. Its fraud detection systems are virtually non existent. This guy was publishing a pirated book EVERY SIX SECONDS and the system didn't flag anything. And it gets worse.

The victims weren't just puny self-publishers like me, many of the books were from huge authors, Big 5-published, household names. He was using the original author names and even keeping the original covers. Just uploading them in his own account. Every six seconds.

This mass-pirater was just publishing these 100,000 books under his own publisher name. Amazon's system didn't detect anything wrong with this huge upload of duplicates. And it gets worse. A LOT worse.

I phoned Amazon, they told me to email the copyright agent (Amazon Legal) with various proofs I was the copyright holder etc. And the pirated book came down pretty fast. That part worked fine. But what happened next? Nothing. And I mean nothing.

Amazon never responded to my emails asking how many copies this pirated edition had sold. More worryingly, Amazon wouldn't engage in any dialogue about the 100,000+ other titles this pirate had published. They did nothing for SIX MONTHS and then the books came down.

I don't know why they came down at that point. I can only assume that the likes of Stephen King or his publisher noticed these pirated books and pressured Amazon to act. But this should show that Amazon will never be proactive even against clear theft. Amazon. Doesn't. Care.

Fast forward to 2018. Amazon finally moves against some of the scammers plaguing the romance charts after lots of negative media. A small handful of scammers, mostly the ones mentioned in the press reports. If there is one thing that will get Amazon to act, it's bad press.

But here's the thing. Amazon had a list of all the major scammers for nine months. This were guys engaging in book stuffing, plagiarizing, fake reviews, incentivized purchases, mass gifting, street team shenanigans, mass upvoting, illegal lotteries, clickfarms, and bots.

Amazon paid these scammers MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from the KU fund in that period, despite KNOWING they were scammers. That was our money from our communal compensation fund, and Amazon gave it to scammers. Month after month. Despite KNOWING. Because Amazon. Doesn't. Care.

So I'm all for talking about systems that @AmazonKDP should have in place to prevent fraud and theft and scamming, but we need to address this part first: Amazon. Doesn't. Care.

I have spoken to senior people at @AmazonKDP about the scammer issue. I have had face-to-face chats and telephone calls with the person at @AmazonKDP in charge of the whole scammer issue. I'll tell you straight: HE. DOESN'T. CARE.

Just to prove Amazon doesn't care about scammers: these major bad boy book stuffing scammers HAD REPS. They had Amazon reps. Think about that.

So how do we make Amazon care? By kicking up a righteous stink on social media. By giving Amazon a black eye in the press. It's the only thing Amazon ever responds to.

THEN we can talk about what systems might prevent all this crap from trashing the entire Kindle Store.

For the record, while I do think such talk is hasty because Amazon doesn't care, there are three things Amazon could do to kill scamming overnight:

1. Police the All Star bonuses. Running clickfarms and teams of ghosts and buying reviews etc. isn't cheap. Amazon can't monitor the whole Kindle Store and no one is asking them to., but closely monitoring who is getting All Star bonuses would really hurt the major scammers.

2. Change the payment model. Paying per page, along with such a high cap on pages, is what made scamming explode. Most of the scammers aren't authors, and they will return to selling diet pills and real estate courses if we tackle the compensation model in some way.

3. Act on fraud reports. The community is actually doing all the hard work for Amazon. We've given them names, reports, spreadsheets, list of ASINs. We've handed them everything on a damn plate and Amazon just does nothing. (This is why it goes back to Amazon not caring...).

Really though, we can come up with all the ideas in the world but none of it will ever matter while Amazon doesn't care. THAT has to change first.

For anyone coming new to this issue, I have a whole section of my website related to Kindle Store scamming in all its forms, with dozens of posts and explainers and links to more info. davidgaughran.com/category/bewar…