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Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale.

I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.

Out of curiosity, how do intellectual property laws handle someone publishing a work under someone else's name? Is that a trademark violation?

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It's not trademark, but you can sue someone for fraudulently using your name and likeness, it varies by state in the US.

Of course the actual entity posting the fraudulent books are probably overseas somewhere and will disappear if anyone tries to contact them. Maybe if it happens to enough people a class-action lawsuit against Amazon would force them to do some due diligence when listing a book to make sure that the author is actually who they claim to be.

Rumor has it that TikTok'ers are doing explainers on how to easily create these for a quick buck, so why wouldn't there be plenty of takers stateside. It being the onslaught it is, murky territory and all, much enforcement seems pretty unlikely anyway, so why not give it a try.

People used to sell this sort of information, it was the classic digital multi level marketing scam without the overarching marketing company. There were ads on YouTube google and Amazon all the time for get my book about how to successfully make money self publishing books on Amazon… people bought it tried to do the harder part of writing stuff then eventually some decided they could crib the book that convinced them to do it in the first place and plagiarised/rehashed the material and wrote the next generation of how to make money writing books to self publish on Amazon and the cycle would continue, slowly growing as more customers fell for the cheap garbage books and the promise of easy income…

Then large language models utterly annihilated this as it becomes obvious that you just write spam books and hope people buy them, job done…

Kind of amazing to see thevalue collapse reaching a new phase, where the only reliable way to drive sales for garbage books is to try and parasitically leach reputation by pretending a real author who has a real reputation is the author of the garbage book.

The author of the article:

In addition to being a professor with The Great Courses (How to Publish Your Book), she is the author of The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal.

> Of course the actual entity posting the fraudulent books are probably overseas somewhere

Amazon is an international, but is certainly bound by the laws of the United States of America. At least the ones it can't buy itself out of.

"I didn't know" isn't an affirmative defense if your employees are on the record saying they know.

I think Amazon wouldn't say they didn't know, but that it's not their responsibility. For example if Random House published a book that libeled someone, and Amazon sold it, you would sue Random House and the author for libel, not Amazon. Likewise, Amazon would tell you to go sue the publisher, who is probably judgement-proof in some way.

Also don't you have to prove damages in cases like these?

The better example is a store that sells counterfeit goods (and continues to sell it even after being made aware). In most countries if they are a small shop they get closed down very quickly, now if they are Amazon ... crickets.

yeah, it's such bullshit.

> The better example is a store that sells counterfeit goods (and continues to sell it even after being made aware).

The (frustrating) argument Amazon would make here is that they weren't "aware", there was just an "accusation", and since the accuser didn't supply evidence...

Which would obviously be a load of Reddit-quality IANAL bullshit… yeah?

I mean, really, you cannot lie about who authored books you’re selling. Especially if the author is well known and their reputation has value. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37043061 has a reasonable if blunt assessment. But, honestly, this is obvious to everyone who isn’t customer obsessed ;)

Assuming they dont just have the same name but are intentionally impersonating you - sounds like fraud, false advertising or identity theft [ianal]

The example book just has the same name. It should be defensible; you can write under any name you want.

Amazon itself is the entity attributing the book to the more famous Jane Friedman. This is a case where the "impersonator" appears to be legally fine and Amazon is on questionable ground.

You can write under any name you want, depending on your intent. If your intent is to deceive, you probably can't.

Here's an example of a literary forgery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_forgery) where the author ended up in prison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries ... But it would probably take some digging to see what particular action he was had for.

He stated outright that the author of the diaries was the same Adolf Hitler who led the Nazi party, and sold the diaries for over a million deutschmarks on that assurance. It's not very complex.

> At the very least, if you look at my author profile on Amazon, these junk books don’t appear.

It sounds like maybe this is not happening? If they are just appearing under the search for “AuthorName” I am not sure there really is a problem with Amazon’s system.

IANAL, perhaps Amazon still has some liability if an author is using a fraudulent pen name for books they submit.

Amazon's software is odd here. If I click on the name on a real Jane Friedman book, it does not include the fake books... But this is not commutative. If I click on the name on a fake Jane Friedman book, it lists out a mix of real and fake books.

For example, this is a blank notebook on Amazon Canada that a seller has stuck her all-lowercase name upon. If I click the author name on the listing, I'm taken to an author search page that intermingles it with her real books.[1]

That strongly implies Amazon asserting they're one and the same.

Knowing that in the reverse this does not hold tells me that this us probably an unconsidered edge-case and not intentional design. But still, Amazon is, in that search, saying "oh you're looking for more jane friedman (lowercase) here's Jane Friedman (title case)" which implies they're the same person.

I'd call that a software bug... but now that Friedman has informed them, they can't plead ignorance of the bug.

[1] https://www.amazon.ca/NOTEBOOK-Notebook-journal-jane-friedma...

yeah I think what you really need is for Amazon to have a Wikipedia style 'disambiguation' page. Then they can link them but make it obvious that they're two (or more) different people and results for person A aren't related to person B:

> Showing 1-1 books for Dr Spock: > * Baby and Child Care > > Search instead for: > > * Mr Spock (10 albums)

Amazon's identification is a train wreck. Most books have links on the page to what is, by Amazon's description, the kindle version of the same book.

Quite often, that link goes to the kindle version of an unrelated book.

Good analysis. It seems in the inauthentic case on the product page they are just linking “jane friedman” to a search page for that term. Wonder if there is a way of setting up a merchant account with just a label/DBA vs an extra step of claiming an author account.

Agreed it does seem like a bug.

> you can write under any name you want.

Sort of. Publishing under a pseudonym is fine, but most US states have laws that prevent you from using someone else's name and likeness without their permission.

Unlike copyright, (registered) trademarks don't exist by default, they have to be registered, defended vigorously and regularly renewed. So you would first have to explicitly register your name as a trademark, and that's going to be quite challenging if you have a common name like "Jane Friedman".

That said, a quick poke at TESS shows a bunch of trademarks containing Friedman, including some personal names (Alan, Rivka, Angela).

Update: Yes, common law (unregistered) trademarks are a thing in some countries including the US, but they offer much less protection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark

In the UK & US at least that's not true, there are de facto (unregistered) and (offering more protection) registered trademarks.

In the UK at least if you could show your name gave it some weight, and that you'd suffered some financial harm as a result of its use, then you'd have a case without it being registered.

Yes, common law trademarks are a legal concept, but the article features Amazon telling the author to go pound sand unless they have the paperwork to back up a registered trademark.

In the UK, Scotland, specifically, McDonalds has lost at least two lawsuits against a Scottish family for trademark violations.

But if the Scottish family weren't named McDonald, McDonald's would be far more likely to win the case. In fact, an exception being made for a Scottish family's real name implies rights outside of strict trademark over the use of one's own name.

Another, related, issue would be the existence of two authors with the same name who both publish under their birth names. I don't see how they could be a 'trade mark' so to speak unless there was an intent to commit identity theft which would be a separate issue (which appears to be the case here)

It appears as though you can trademark your own personal name only if you are using it to identify a service or product, not just in association with your artistic creations.

>Similarly, personal names (actual names and pseudonyms) of individuals or groups function as marks only if they identify and distinguish the services recited and not merely the individual or group. In re Mancino, 219 USPQ 1047 (TTAB 1983) (holding that BOOM BOOM would be viewed by the public solely as applicant’s professional boxing nickname and not as an identifier of the service of conducting professional boxing exhibitions); In re Lee Trevino Enters., 182 USPQ 253 (TTAB 1974) (LEE TREVINO used merely to identify a famous professional golfer rather than as a mark to identify and distinguish any services rendered by him); In re Generation Gap Prods., Inc., 170 USPQ 423 (TTAB 1971) (GORDON ROSE used only to identify a particular individual and not as a service mark to identify the services of a singing group). The name of a character or person is registrable as a service mark if the record shows that it is used in a manner that would be perceived by purchasers as identifying the services in addition to the character or person. In re Fla. Cypress Gardens Inc., 208 USPQ 288 (TTAB 1980) (name CORKY THE CLOWN used on handbills found to function as a mark to identify live performances by a clown, where the mark was used to identify not just the character but also the act or entertainment service performed by the character); In re Carson, 197 USPQ 554 (TTAB 1977) (individual’s name held to function as mark, where specimen showed use of the name in conjunction with a reference to services and information as to the location and times of performances, costs of tickets, and places where tickets could be purchased); In re Ames, 160 USPQ 214 (TTAB 1968) (name of musical group functions as mark, where name was used on advertisements that prominently featured a photograph of the group and gave the name, address, and telephone number of the group’s booking agent); In re Folk, 160 USPQ 213 (TTAB 1968) (THE LOLLIPOP PRINCESS functions as a service mark for entertainment services, namely, telling children’s stories by radio broadcasting and personal appearances).

Impersonating a person is a crime, but all that they would need is to find a fake writer with the same name and some money for burying the small author in trial costs for ten years. Not a good perspective but mouth to mouth, or satire right can help.

She should have a personal web controlled entirely by her, show a list of her real books and mock-destroy the fake books from there with some dark humor or cynicism. Her job is to write after all. That could be even an opportunity to improve her brand.

Taken one to one small writers are easy fish. Should join and press for regulation change.

The US doesn't nationally have a Right of Publicity law (the UK does, the EU doesn't, India does -- it's a real mixed bag out there), so you can't actually stop someone from using your name as a pen name for the most part. But this was already becoming a problem long before AI reared its head, with public domain text put in verbatim in a book by "Stephen A. King" or whatever

> Out of curiosity, how do intellectual property laws handle someone publishing a work under someone else's name?

Depends on jurisdiction. There is a a lot of case law (precedent), rather than statute, and it’s up to the infringed party to make a case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

amazon or goodreads or some other body could have a new type of system. if you want to publish a book using the same name as someone else, then they make it a special case. like a default 'no'. then you either change your name a bit or prove it's your name. something like that.

Names (and faces) are a "publicity rights" thing, usually not considered to be part of intellectual property law proper (but entertainment law instead).

In many cases it is regulated by state law, rather than federal law.

It is basically a slam dunk, if she were to take them to court and if they weren't Amazon who can just grind her down with years of litigation and tricks.

>Out of curiosity, how do intellectual property laws handle someone publishing a work under someone else's name? Is that a trademark violation?

I assume in the same way they handle somebody else who actually has the same name publishing books... they do nothing. Unless perhaps they are associating themselves with you "By the author of Such and Such"

If you "Look Inside" the offending books on Amazon you can see they have extensive "About the Author" page describing Jane Friedman - so it would be difficult to argue that the books are not trying to trick people into believing it's Jane.

I think at that point it’s fraud.

At which point, I'd expect it to be a matter for the author to take it to court as opposed to expecting a bookstore to adjudicate it for them. Which is (sadly) going to be expensive for an individual unless a publisher is going to undertake the effort for them.

I don't think she's asking Amazon to remove the books (though they should), but rather they're on her author page. There should be a way for an author that you've created a page for to be able to say "those books aren't mine, please remove them."

Jane Friedman is a renowned author, publishing expert, and advocate for writers in the digital age. With over two decades of experience in the publishing industry, Jane has become a trusted authority on writing, publishing, and the ever-evolving landscape of eBooks.
Jane's passion for writing and her deep understanding of the publishing industry have led her to empower countless aspiring authors to fulfill their writing dreams. Through her books, articles, and speaking engagements, she has provided invaluable guidance on crafting compelling content, navigating the publishing process, and maximizing the potential of eBooks.
[...]
Jane's dedication to helping authors succeed extends beyond her writing and consulting work. As a respected thought leader in the industry, she has contributed to numerous industry publications and served as a mentor to emerging writers. Her insights and advice have been sought after by authors at all stages of their careers.

[...]

It is apparent that the books are trying to trick people into believing this is the Jane Friedman who is now complaining about misattribution.

But it's not apparent that they're doing anything they're not supposed to be doing. It's obviously fine for the fake books to be written under the name Jane Friedman. I am not sure how common it is for fictional authors to have fictional biographical information printed on their books, but it seems hard to avoid for something like Naked Came the Stranger that was attributed to a single author without actually having one.

And even if we think a fictional biography is beyond the pale, most of the bio here isn't fraudulent. Everyone is free to say they are a renowned author and publishing expert regardless of the facts. ("Puffery.") There is a factual claim about having two decades of experience in the publishing industry, and a factual claim about having contributed to numerous industry publications.

And after all of that, if you thought you could make a case that the bio in the back made the book fraudulent, the injured party would be someone who had purchased the book, not the author being imitated.

-----

Jane Friedman (the real one) asked Amazon for the wrong remedy. There isn't a reason to remove the books from sale, and Amazon was right not to do that. She should have asked for Amazon to stop claiming that she had written the fake books, which is something Amazon is doing that they shouldn't be doing.

(And Amazon's problem there is not limited to books that are intentionally pretending to be written by the more well-known Jane Friedman. If you go to their page for "books by Jane Friedman", it is headed by The Business of Being a Writer, identifying the Jane Friedman in question, but it is mostly full of books that do not have a Jane Friedman listed as author or contributor of any kind, such as Atopic Dermatitis and Eczematous Disorders.)

Is it not a form of defamation?

Assuming the author is US-based, you would need to find US-based defamers, then drag them into court. And winning defamation suit in the US is insanely hard. It is much easier in the UK. Oh, and she needs to pay the lawyers for their work.

It would appear that Jeff Bezos has not trademarked his name.

Someone did, for part of 2018. But it has lapsed. Serial number: 87745628 It was someone in California, so probably not him.

I don't think I can permalink the USPTO TESS page.

this is classic monopoly behavior, once a company gets big enough they don't have to care about customer service. Similar reason why Google has such terrible customer service

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