Amazon is selling stolen art, fake products and is infringing copyrights | Hacker News Reader

Amazon is selling stolen art, fake products and is infringing copyrights

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151 pointssebkomianos87 comments

(I work for Amazon, but not in the retail division. Opinions are mine and not of the company. I'm also an attorney, but this is not legal advice.)

There is a channel in pretty much every company, large or small, for reporting copyright violations and other legal complaints. That channel is the legal department (in the US, the DMCA contact point), not the customer service department. If you want a company to actually take action, you have to get the right people involved.

In Amazon's case, it's right here: https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement

If you complain to the wrong people, expect a suboptimal response. They're not trained to help in these cases, and don't always have the authority to short-circuit the bureaucratic process like the legal department does.

As the article/message chain clearly shows, the author did submit an infringement report to that link. In fact, so have I.

As the author posted a screenshot of, you get an email reply after some time saying something to the effect of "We have reviewed and removed the content"

...except, nothing was removed. The infringing content is still there. The exact same thing happened to me. Same exact email.

Edit, here's my email from Amazon: https://i.imgur.com/mzXycfk.jpg -- nothing was actually removed.

I looked at the thread and it appears that the product ID (ASIN) that was the subject of the original takedown request was not the same as the ASIN of the the subsequent complaint. If it appears on multiple catalog pages, or a subsequent violation is alleged, each ASIN must be reported.

Unfortunately this is the downside of being an IP rights holder - policing is a PITA. (Amazon, do their credit, does offer a brand registry, but that protects against trademark infringement, not copyright infringement.)

In your case, assuming they did not do exactly what they said they would do (remove the infringing content from the specific listing page referred to by the ASIN), I'd have your attorney send a takedown notice to the following address:

  Copyright Agent
  Amazon Legal Department
  P.O. Box 81226
  Seattle, WA  98108

If your content is on multiple product listings, you'll need to identify each ASIN.

Ah! Good catch! I didn't see that the ASINs were different, yup, you have to report each ASIN.

I'll keep that address in mind for next time. Thanks!

So nothing stops a copyright infringer re-uploading the content with a new ASIN? I think only a hefty fine for both the infringer and Amazon would make them think twice about doing it again.

The DMCA expressly gives entities that publish user-generated content a “safe harbor” exemption from such liability if they handle authorized takedown requests in a reasonable amount of time.

Exactly! So Amazon makes money from our work. And they even makes us lose time with reporting items that simply change numbers. What a shame!

Do you really want platforms to decide what can be put and what can't be? How should they decide that an article is IP infringement and what isn't?

I hope that Amazon, in case of repeated violations, will take down the sellers, giving the information to right enforcement organizations. If changing the ASIN is enough to continue, no surprise if it becomes the counterfeiter heaven. This is a serious matter, counterfeit electronics can damage things and peoples, even kill them creating fire or discharging lethal electric power.

I am guessing your case was also similar to this comment here [1]. Amazon must have removed as requested and responded back to you saying so, however, the seller bypassed with a new account and uploaded again. You may be able to check.

PS: I haven't read the OP yet since it's behind Facebook login.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18780734

Interesting. I wonder if they have some kind of automated system to reupload images after an infringement takedown, because I recall checking the ASIN maybe 20 minutes after I received that email and it was still there. The infringer did not seem very sophisticated at all so I'm not quite convinced, but that is certainly a possibility I had not considered.

Also, I grabbed the thread from the OP in case you were interested: https://imgur.com/a/L1gFAqy

A company training its staff to forward copyright complaints to the appropriate channel is trivial.

Expecting all customers of a company to be magically educated about the proper channel for copyright complaints is much less realistic imo.

A company making profit from counterfeits making counterfeit reporting unintuitive sounds a bit suspicious.

First, you’re mixing up counterfeit goods with copyright violations. They’re not identical. Different bodies of law, but it’s easy to confuse the two.

At any rate, if you’re an IP rights holder, knowing how to deal with violations is table stakes for your legal representative. Googling “amazon copyright notice” gives you the correct page link near the top of the first results page.

I have reported the item on their correct page. By the way you can try to report it yourself right now. You cannot. You simply get the message that the ASIN or URL is wrong.

Right? Amazon is first and foremost a logistics company. And we’re being told “oh you gotta send it down the proper channel to get a response.” BS.

If amazon can deliver a million packages a day, they should damn well be able to forward a complaint to the department it belongs in. What a joke.

So you’re telling the people reporting things it’s /their/ fault that this activity is thriving? Amazon bears no responsibility for taking a complaint like this in /any/ channel and making an appropriate response? Come on.

This isn’t a mom and pop store. This isn’t a company that can’t figure out logistics. This is amazon. If they don’t forward these complaints to the right place of their own volition, then they aren’t working hard enough to abide by the law. Fair is fair. Corporations need some responsibility to go with all their privileges.

You're not wrong, but Amazon isn't going to do the government's job for it. If they can get away with stealing, they will.

Breaking safe harbor rules, stuffing & adding counterfeits,...

The only issue is outings that it's too costly to sue them and they'll find a way to weasel their way out of it.

I don't really see how Amazon is breaking safe harbor rules. The case law surrounding OCILLA makes it very clear the service providers have no obligation to seek out copyrighted content on their site and instead rely near exclusively on reports from copyright holders.

I am the artist who's work is sold illegally on Amazon. There is no excuse for Amazon. Absolutely none. 0! I have reported the URL. It never changed. I don't know when the ASIN changed but the URL remained the same. The new ASIN or URL cannot be reported. I am getting the message that the ASIN is wrong whenever I am trying to report it. I am getting silly answers from silly people who are bullshiting me. They have a seller who is selling fake products. What a serious company does is to close his store. Especially when they learn that an item that is take off is up again. After days of complains I decided to complain on Facebook. They are bullshiting me there as well. It's a real shame!

The ASIN is embedded in the listing page URL, so if the ASIN changed, so did the URL. Out of curiosity, what’s the current URL?

If you’re tired of chasing an infringer, why don’t you hire an attorney to engage Amazon’s legal department? You might end up with a more satisfactory result than by constantly playing “whack-a-mole” with reporting individual listings. You can also separately report a seller by following the instructions here: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/help.html?...

I will see what I will do. However the problem is much bigger. Amazon should take down a shop when they know that the seller is simply changing the ASIN. But this isn't the only problem. I tried to report 10 different items. It was possible to report just 3. Their system isn'r recognising the other 7 ASINs. So Amazon really has a system that makes difficult to impossible to find your right. Hiring an attorney costs money. They know it and this is why they are making it as the only option.

Aside: Thank you for all the help here! These comments are amazingly helpful. Do you have a blog or other repository of this knowledge such that we can search for it there? Though I have no issues with Amazon now, I can imagine I may have some in the future. Searching through old HN comments to try to find this data is, well, sub-optimal. Again, thank you!

Here's the product page in question: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orlco-Paintings-Decoration-Collecti...

You can clearly see the artist's signature cut-off in the bottom left of the image. Here it is on the artist's website as well:

https://tsevis.com/editorial-illustration-2016-2017?fbclid=I...

I would say those posters are created by some software, definitely not that person.

Many artists use technology to create art. That doesn't mean they're not responsible for creating it, or that it's not art, or that others should remove the artist's name.

That's like saying the art is created by brush and paint and certainly not the artist

I've said it several times...but counterfeit items on Amazon is a big big problem. I've gotten counterfeit goods there in the past and just today I almost bought 2 items; saw Amazon had the cheapest price...then I looked at the reviews. It was very clear people were getting counterfeit goods, some with the UPC I was going to buy actually catching fire (I've had several of this brand and I find this difficult to believe happening a couple of times in the same review thread.) So anyhow, I'm going to Best Buy tomorrow to buy both the things I was going to buy. Amazon is slowly losing my business.

I drove to REI to buy a yeti insulated cup because the ones on amazon were reported counterfeit.

They’re already losing my business.

I recently bought a number of items at REI instead of Amazon for specifically that reason. I am in actually still in a sort of disbelief that this is necessary, but as a once faithful customer (preferring Amazon Prime for everything), I've started avoiding Amazon for anything important or expensive.

It's not surprising that a co-op specializing in high-quality, and often safety-critical goods can deliver a higher quality of product/service than an online seller-of-everything.

It is a surprising result that I can often more confidently buy a product on eBay than on Amazon.

A yeti cooler isn't a specialized item, you can find it at most sporting goods/outdoor stores. It would be analogous to saying that they wanted an Apple charger, but went to the Apple store so they knew they would get a genuine item.

Which ironically is literally the case with amazon-sold “Apple” headphones and chargers.

But we’re not talking higher quality. It’s supposed to be the same. Just not a fake.

So in my experience Amazon actively empowers fraud, at our expense.

There is a HUGE market in China for counterfeit products. In China, even Mercedes-Benz you buy might be entirely counterfeit! Until recent years, these fake products didn't leave China to come to US shores. Now these merchants are simply creating web of LLCs and have Amazon ship it off their crap on Prime. At least dozen product categories were reported as counterfeits in various reviews like Duracells, headlamp, bulbs, USB cables, board games, GoPro like cameras, razor blades etc. I wish Amazon at least made it compulsory to disclose "Made in XYZ" in product description (isn't that a law anyway?).

I don't think somebody selling counterfeit products on Amazon is going to have any ethical qualms about lying about the origin country.

They also allow illegal infringement on sellers. I knew a family that ran an Amazon import business and they bought an entire batch of surplus tennis shoes directly from a company in the primary supply chain of the shoe company. All on the up and up. The shoe company filed a complaint with Amazon that they were not authorized to sell their shoes and Amazon closed down the related listings. That was a serious restraint of trade and Amazon could likely be sued to the moon but they just moved on. I really wish they would have pursued the lawsuit against Amazon.

What did Amazon do here that was wrong? It sounds like these people bought illegitimate “ghost shift” shoes from a factory and the brand owner correctly shut them down.

If you obtain a product legitimately you are allowed to sell it. This wasn't a counterfeit product nor was it claimed to be. Just because a company has a policy of only selling to authorized retailers does not allow them to restrain the trade of their merchandise by legal owners. It would have been a huge lawsuit.

Yes but ghost shift goods are counterfeits unless they are free of any logos and other intellectual property. The first sale doctrine doesn’t apply because it was never purchased from the IP owner at any point in the line.

If I have a factory in Bangladesh print some t-shirts with the Nike logo on them, I wouldn’t be able to sell them (at least in the US) because I didn’t get permission from Nike, which owns the rights to their logo. It’s the same thing here. It doesn’t matter if the factory happens to also produce legitimate Nike t-shirts.

I believe you are trying to classify what they bought as something it isn't (ghost shift goods). They legitimately bought the surplus from an authorized retailer.

If you go buy a bunch of Nike shirts from a Nike store they cannot stop you from selling them on eBay or Amazon (at least legally). At best the shoe company could have sued their authorized retailers for the bulk sale if it violated a contract.

Amazon happily complied with an illegal request to restrain trade causing damages to a small company. The lawsuit would have been huge.

No, the mandatory binding arbritration would be very small.

I'm asking around about that. In a simple contract dispute I believe you are right. If you have damages due to criminal activity it may not fall under the terms of a simple contract dispute.

That's true, I assumed from your original comment where you said "directly from a company in the primary supply chain of the shoe company" that the shoes were from further up the supply chain, like a factory, rather than further down. My mistake.

Even if the product were from an authorized retailer, I don't see how the shoe company's request to Amazon was illegal. Restraint of trade means that contracts restricting commerce are in some cases unenforceable. It doesn't mean that Amazon is compelled to do business with the reseller if they would rather prioritize their relationship with the shoe company.

If Amazon had terminated their listings without any cause or even because of competition agreements it probably would have been legal. Since it was in direct compliance with an illegal demand and Amazon stated as such they probably doomed themselves. Judges tend to look very poorly on large companies ramrodding the small guys. The small business wasn't prepared to spend $50k+ just initiating the process and went on with their business model.

> All on the up and up.

Unfortunately, trademark law in most jurisdictions allows manufacturers to effectively prohibit importing and selling goods obtained cheaply overseas and reselling them in direct competition with ‘legitimate’ distributors.

This allows manufacturers to engage in price differentiation, to the detriment of consumers. As with most IP law it mainly serves to enrich those in a position to exploit it.

I don't think think I agree. The first sale doctrine protects the resale of lawfully purchased, legitimate products.

The kirtsaeng v Wiley supreme Court case affirmed the right of sellers to import international versions of textbooks for resale in the US. This resulted in a reversal of Omega watches v Costco where Omega had argued that Costco couldn't resell their watches in the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtsaeng_v._John_Wiley_%26_....

That’s an interesting case; historically courts have ruled that the first sale doctrine doesn’t apply to overseas manufactured goods, since they were never legally sold in the US.

However, the case doesn’t necessarily create a precedent. There was a four judge majority, with one judge concurring, but with a different opinion. Also, it was a copyright lawsuit, not a trademark lawsuit, so it doesn’t necessarily set a precedent for trademark disputes.

In 2018, things are truly great for large copyright owners. But for small copyright owners, it sucks.

It's pretty much impossible for Amazon to tell whether an item is a licensed use of a copyrighted creative work or not. It's perfectly legal to resell work that was legally bought with no additional permission from the creator, for instance. (It is pretty clear from a human analysis here that the seller is infringing copyrights by making prints of digital images found online, but it would be pretty much impossible to create some sort of filter that would block these products from being offered on the platform).

From the thread, it looked like the support representatives engaged with the person complaining on Facebook, reported some items had been removed in the past based on takedown requests. That's pretty responsive, all in all. Maybe the artist could enlist some additional help discovering and helping him and other affected artists report for takedown the items that this seller is offering so they'd eventually . Or they could gather some funds and sue Amazon.

Yes, it may be impossible to create a filter to detect new (previously unseen) copyrighted products on the platform. However, once a copyrighted product has been through a dispute and the owner has been established by Amazon - it's completely feasible to programmatically detect and flag this product once it re-appears under other accounts. It would actually be quite easy, given Amazon's technology expertise.

From reviewing the thread the artist posted, it appears that's why he's frustrated - that fakes keep re-appearing, and Amazon is asking him to jump through hoops again, even though his authorship had been established.

So, no - I don't feel it's reasonable to ask the author to enlist people to help him police the marketplace, Amazon can easily solve this problem (future infringement) with technology.

1. Write a book and sell it on Amazon.

2. Some counterfeiter creates a listing with an infringing copy of the book.

3. DMCA request is filed and the listing is taken down and the account is banned.

4. Someone else buys a legitimate copy of my book and creates a listing for it on Amazon.

What should Amazon do?

Selling a used book? Different scenario. Same product (ISBN), nothing for Amazon to do.

No, all these can easily be prevented. In fact these has been prevented by brick and mortar shops fairly reliably for decades. Online sellers can impose background checks, identity verification, automatic law enforcement reporting, security deposits, delayed payments etc. One shouldn't be just able to post a product listing with intentional falsehood and omissions, sold openly to public and get away with it. That should be and is a bonafide crime. A system that allows that is helping to support and proliferate that crime.

Me, the artist tried to report them again. It's impossible. I am getting the message that the ASIN or URL is wrong. Amazon should simply shut down the seller's shop because they know that he is simply selling counterfeit products. A serious company would do this. I believe they simply chose not to. Because they compete with other unethical companies who are probably worse. I hope that we the people start realising how bad these policies are and protect ourselves.

Looks like the person violating the copyright just reuploaded under a new ID after the original takedown, which is why the artist is still seeing his work up there.

Everyone at Amazon is supposed to be committed to Amazon's Leadership Principles. Each new hire is supposed to learn them and live by them. The very first principle is:

Customer Obsession: Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

What a joke.

sounds like a nice generic company value/principle

I believe it was really true when Amazon was a small company that needed growth by word of mouth, just like Google by not being evil. When the companies get huge, word of mouth is not the best growth tactic anymore.

That's twice in the past couple of days that I've mirrored a comment because I've clicked new tab on the reply rather than just replying immediately

Almost as funny as Don't be evil. Once the company becomes beholden to shareholders, all of the mottos/ethos/etc that they may have started with become null & void. Whether that's from an out right declaration, or just no longer recognizable from the slippery slope of decisions while chasing the stock price.

At least, "Dont be evil" sounds a lot classier than that DPRK level propaganda.

Is it a joke?

Does the average customer care more about saving $10 or protecting someone's copyright? I'd argue given the how prevalent copyright infringement by people has been that they'd rather save $10. So Amazon is doing exactly what customers want which is cheap goods irrespective of everything else.

It's not about copyright infringement. The problem is that counterfeits are typically sold at same price and more often than not experience is severely degraded. I personally have lost several hundreds of dollars worth of gadgets due to counterfeit duracells. Most importantly customer is being lied about what they are actually sold.

The linked story is mainly about copyright infringement of artists and that is what I responded regarding.

You're talking mainly about trademark infringement and I agree that Amazon is screwing over their customers regarding it. Of course, their end game is pretty clear in that area. Buy "AmazonBasics" products and you're certain they're legitimate.

For art, perhaps. The more general problem of selling counterfeit products and garbage products propped up with thousands of fake five star reviews is not good for the customers.

I think you are confused. The artist is not the customer.

Only tangentially related but type in any product category like say "socks". Near the top right set Sort By: to "Price High to Low"

Result: $14000 pair of socks

$9000 tube of toothpaste

$3800 package of rubber bands

$1000 usb-c cable

$45000 water bottle.

Curious why Amazon can't fix this. It makes them look like they have zero control, zero trustworthiness, a scam site. Note I don't normally choose to sort that way but those items with those prices show up in my regular searches quite often

At least in some cases, it's two competitors using (bad) automated pricing tools. When one auto-raises the price, the other responds, which triggers the first to raise again. Over and over. To the point where you get book listings priced over $20M. http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358

But yeah...you'd think Amazon would have some sort of sanity filter.

Those $14k socks could be a money laundering operation as well. Happens on AirBnB, course it might be easier on there as who knows what the real price us of a one if a kind house vs a pair of socks.

Sellers can set the prices of the things they're selling. It would be hard to have third party sellers if you didn't allow them that.

Sometimes when sellers don't want a particular Asin to sell temporarily they will raise the price to something insane instead of deactivating the listing.

I agree it does look janky.

I've had fake headphones (more than once) and fake software. I contacted customer services and they didn't even seem to understand why I was trying to point out all the fake products listed on the site. Needless to say, they are all still there and no action was taken.

Take a quick search for headphones by "Apple", I doubt any of these are genuinely Apple: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/s/s/ref=sr_nr_p_89_0?fst=as%3Aoff...

The problem is it's more profitable not to care about these problems.

How many people got involved in that conversation? At least 3 different support people. And neither had a direct response to the guy. This corporate jargon is just painful to read and companies like Amazon should know better.

In switzerland (which is outside of amazon's prime and shipping area) amazon is nothing else than a super expensive version of AliExpress where everybody tries to hide that they are in fact from China.

What is the shipping experience from aliexpress like?

It depends on the seller, the exact product, and whether you pay extra for faster shipping. Even then, it varies wildly.

(The many stories about people receiving goods over a year after they were ordered and long after they were assumed to have been lost and refunded are not lying.)

I've ordered a couple of things from AliExpress to Canada, the cheapest shipping options take a long time... I think I waited 2 months for a pack of rare earth magnets once. There are FedEx, etc options available but sometimes they are more expensive than the items themselves.

I don’t any content on this post just a link to Facebook?

The link takes you to an exchange of comments on a Facebook page that provides context for the title of this post on HN. Were you unable to view it?

I don’t have a Facebook account, and on my phone I only see the initial post from Amazon.co.uk.

Same. No Facebook. No comments no context.

same here

Try this: https://imgur.com/a/L1gFAqy

Thanks!@

Once I ordered a painting and it never arrived. Amazon didn't give me back my money as seller claims it was delivered. Seller never responded to an inquiry from my side. Since then I'm not ordering much from Amazon anymore - there is no customer service and they collaborate with and support thiefs.

Did you try a chargeback?

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