Amazon has decided to crack down on ebook piracy by punishing… the authors. The e-commerce giant’s measure is unanimously against it.
As we know, illegal copying deprives authors, creators and other rights holders of their livelihood. The piracy of e-books therefore represents a huge loss of income for well-known and/or independent writers, but also for publishers of all sizes.
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Amazon has faced the problem of e-book piracy since launching its e-reader, the Kindle, fifteen years ago. It is partly to counter this phenomenon that it created the Kindle subscription. Unfortunately, the latter is not enough to eradicate this scourge. Hacking is more popular than ever, and when the authorities shut down a site, it reappears under a different name elsewhere on the Webe.
Amazon decides to punish authors when their books are pirated
To make matters worse, Amazon has decided to apply a double penalty to writers who have subscribed to the Kindle Direct Publishing Select formula. The juggernaut of e-commerce removes titles from its catalog which are also found in illegal download. They are, however, warned. The contract of KDP Select places a heavy emphasis on exclusivity.
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Torrent Freak has thus received many testimonials from authors reporting that Amazon has removed their books from the Kindle subscription because their ebook has been pirated. Writer Raven Kennedy states, “Copyright infringement is beyond my control. Even though I pay a company a lot of money to file takedown notices on my behalf, and constantly check the web for pirated versions, I can’t track everything, and rather than support and d help its authors, Amazon threatens me. The ironic thing is that the hackers get the files from Amazon “.