Here’s an update about the unauthorized copyright party that has been copying images without permission and plagiarizing thousands of authors’ works on Amazon. I received this email from Amazon yesterday at 11:36 AM EST, before I had talked with the USPTO and was awarded the trademark status. In short, the offending title was taken down.
There are a few things that are really odd about this but I’ll explain afterwards:
Hello [redacted],
Thank you for your report of infringement. We reviewed your report and altered or removed the reported content based on the information you provided. The detail page may not show the changes that were implemented for up to 24 hours.
ASIN: B0D1G12N3T
Title: The Art Nouveau Coloring Book Hats Cats Vintage Romance Volume 1 A Stress Relief Relaxation Mindfulness Series For Women Men Teens Complaint ID: [redacted]
We have provided your email address and the additional information you shared in your complaint to the reported sellers. You may be contacted by them to provide a retraction for this report. If no retraction or successful appeal is made, the original action will remain in place and reported sellers will not be able to re-list on the reported ASINs. Retracting this complaint would allow the reported sellers to re-list on the reported ASINs.
To retract a complaint submitted from Brand Registry, please use the “Retract a complaint” link in Submission History (https://brandregistry.amazon.com/brand/submission-history).
To retract a complaint submitted from the Report Infringement Form, use the Retraction Form (https://www.amazon.com/report/infringement/retract). You will need the complaint ID provided above to submit a retraction.
If you have additional notices that you wish to submit, our team only investigates one type of infringement per submission and no more than 50 ASINs per submission.
Thank you,
Amazon.com
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As a rights owner, you may be interested to know that Amazon offers a variety of tools and services that allow you to have more control over your brand. If you would like to learn more about these services, visit the Brand Services page (https://brandservices.amazon.com/?ld=BRUSNFE).
To learn more about Amazon Intellectual Property policies, review our Rights Owner Help Content (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/U5SQCEKADDAQRLZ).
About that part of providing another party my personal information. Surprisingly, it’s not the first time I’ve seen this before. For example, when requesting a DMCA takedown with Google, they ask for much of the same information as well and state that they will furnish your information to the party you are accusing of infringement. But here is where this gets strange.
I had never been on the receiving end of being accused of infringing on anyone’s copyright in over 25 years until a couple of months ago, Amazon pulled a swatting stunt without any warning on my title The Art Nouveau Coloring Book: Hats, Cats, & Vintage Romance in which they falsely determined my book was infringing on someone else’s copyright. They never provided me with any specifics (which is by design according to one manager over at KDP) other than to tell me something vague which was that it was related to my cover.
I’ll let you read the letter they emailed below, and perhaps you can spot how it’s pretty odd and also unsettling this is:
On Mar 8, 2024, at 9:02 AM, Kindle Content Review <[email protected]> wrote:
Hello
It has come to our attention that the following book(s) may include one or more images on your book’s cover for which you may not have the necessary rights:
B0CVR1S8MG
We’ve made these books unavailable for sale. To make your books eligible for sale, please complete one of the following actions:
- Provide written documentation that proves you have the right to include all images in the book(s) listed above. Examples of documentation include:
• A signed contract or signed written statement from the photographer or other copyright holder granting you the right to use the image(s)
• A license from a stock image website (including image reference number(s) and account information confirming that you licensed the image(s)) - Provide confirmation that the cover image is in the public domain, including dates of publication and website link(s) to confirm
- If you do not hold rights to one or more images in the book(s) listed above, remove those images from the cover and resubmit your book(s) for publication
- For details on updating your cover image and resubmitting, check our Help
https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/G200965970
Please take one of the above actions and respond to this email within 5 days and include the book title and ID for each book listed in your reply.
We take violations of intellectual property rights very seriously. The submission of cover image that violates copyright is a violation of our agreement and may lead to suspension or termination of your account, among other things such as access to optional services being revoked. Please ensure that you own sufficient rights to all content that you publish on Amazon.
Please make changes to your book details or reply to this message within 5 days. Otherwise, the book(s) will be unavailable for sale on Amazon.
Regards
Amazon KDP
For the record, they determined that there was no wrongdoing whatsoever on my part 8 days later.
I decided to raise unholy hell on social media platforms after reading this. At first, I started to tear up followed by shaking uncontrollably. And if you think that’s just me, feel free to go search for other authors and illustrators that this has been happening to. It appears to be a common practice and they refuse to tell us where it’s even coming from or to allow us more details. A local newspaper happened to release a full-page spread about my work and I received it in my mailbox RIGHT before I opened this email. The timing couldn’t have been worse. I lost rank, I lost sales, yet they let my ads continue to run (I shut it off shortly.) I even offered to send them my working files and went into detail as to the fonts that I had used as well as demonstrating the original artwork that had been cut off due to page formatting, then I asked them to ask whoever was accusing me of this to provide them with what they consider their originals or at least a location in which they determined it had appeared before. I knew that they couldn’t. Oh, and by the way I probably forgot to mention that I’ve been hired for image forensics in presentations for government meetings before.
In the end, they added insult to injury by sending me a letter of congratulations as if I had won some f’n award. In a nutshell, they screwed me then they congratulated me for screwing me which sounds about right. That just adds more fuel to the fire.
See their congratulatory email below that was received on 3/15/2024 at 10:38 AM:
Hello,
Thank you for your message and information. Congratulations! The following book you recently submitted have been reviewed and were successfully passed:
The Art Nouveau Coloring Book: Hats, Cats, & Vintage Romance Volume 1
Hello Charlie (AUTHOR) ID: PRI-JD2NXN71MQ4
The book will soon be published on Amazon. Please allow up to 48 hours for the book(s) to become available in the Amazon Store.
Thanks for using Amazon KDP.
[name redacted]
Amazon Content Review Team
Let’s take a step back and respond to their ridiculous requests from two emails above:
- There’s no signed contract nor a license. I’m the creator. So how could I ever provide this?
- It’s not in the public domain. Again, how can you provide this?
- I hold the rights, so bugger off.
BUT I SEE, the easiest way to comply with Amazon Content Review without a fight is their “recommendation” of simply uploading a new cover. If you read that part over again, it’s a hint or dare I say, suggestion for authors to avoid false (and at times, real) accusations altogether.
“Wink Wink. Hey kid if you do this, we can just look the other way right? After all, you don’t want to fight the machine. Our machine…”
To be honest, I had thought about just creating an entirely new cover after reading horror stories of people fighting KDP as I do have images for a few more volumes. I just had a full page spread in the newspaper come out and my book was bleeding rank profusely, possibly back into oblivion never to be found again. The problem was that I had five images on the cover, and they refused to tell me which one they believed was offending. I asked several times and every time my request was met with silence. Those five images ALSO are on the inside, so I would have to replace those five images as well. The other thing I found troubling was the potential for this to set a precedent. So instead, I decided to fight this accusation on a very public level in order to get this book quickly reinstated. I also reached out to Amazon’s upper management including Jeff Bezos and even received responses from his excecutive team after he had read my email.
They never provided any details or afforded any due process before pulling my book without any warning. They could have at least warned me, although it wouldn’t have changed the outcome in the very end. Even management at KDP told me that the Content Review Team’s email was non-specific and very vague. For the record, I should add that a KDP manager told me that conversations with management are automatically transcribed so all of this stuff can be verified on their end as well. The other thing is, who is to say that they won’t pull the same stunt again or what’s to prevent them for doing this to other people?
Also, does this by any chance have any connection to my books being sold online illegally via the SoundCloud channels I mentioned before? Or, is there a connection with the latest incident involving Personalized Joycraft which has posted thousands of unauthorized authors’ works and continues to be sold on Amazon without penalty?
Oh, here’s another thing worth noting. A few days before my book was “mysteriously” removed, I had noticed that someone was using another company’s Trademark on a bunch of titles and had reported them as they started to soar up the ranks. The email below was sent to me from Amazon on 3/6/2024 at 6:55 AM.
Hello,
One or more of your posts were found to be outside our guidelines. In order to help our customers make informed choices, we encourage them to review the product and contribute information about it. However, Community content that violate our guidelines or Conditions of Use will be removed.
Please consider this a first warning.
Before submitting your next post, please refer to our Customer Guidelines:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_508088_bid_1594471?nodeId=508088
Failure to comply with our policies may result in your account being banned from taking part in Community features.
Thanks for your understanding in this matter.
I had actually called up Amazon and the rep there confirmed that this letter was genuine as at first I thought it was a scam. Could it be that someone from Amazon Content Review, or a group of people have been retaliating against KDP authors or others that reporting legitimate infringment? Perhaps they don’t like working? One thing is for certain: their whole power structure is set up in such a way to be abusive as no one other than the executives above have access to Content Team’s inner workings. And the timing is awfully coincidental.
Also, let’s dial it back one more time. I’ve been an Amazon member since 2000. That not only makes me old, but also an OG. You don’t mess with OGs. In those 24 years, I have left probably hundreds of reviews and sometimes complaints, but have never once received warning of this sort until I became involved with these books. Coincidence? Maybe, but the timing is really strange. Think about it. 24 years, hundreds of reviews, and never a single warning. I’ve had an Amazon account that is older than some of the customer service reps that work for them. To receive this letter only to have my book removed is just crazy. Just throwing that out there…
Now ask yourself, who is telling the truth ? Do I have any reason not to? Who stands the most to gain? It’s definitely not me. Also as I have clearly demonstrated in my prior posts, why are some of these really dodgy groups still in operation? Why are there so many authors that make it to the top of KDP being continously swatted back down? I even had one supervisor at KDP suggest that it was a competitor. Again, those calls are transcribed.
Julie Kitzes relayed my worst fears in one of her blog posts from almost two years ago that this seems to be an annual event which happens to her. Let’s just say that I’m not looking forward to the next time someone falsely accuses me and they take down your titles without any due process, and their unethical double standards need to be further investigated and stopped if Amazon and it’s Kindle brand identity ever stands a chance of bettering their own public image.
