Comment by ottonomy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ottonomy | Hacker News Reader

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.

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