Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I Filed a Federal Trade Commission Complaint Today Against Amazon




Don't forget to sign the petition in the upper left hand corner!!  


And, today I filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission today against Amazon.  They publish and sell some of Boyer's plagiarized work, so they're responsible for making products (books) out of stolen materials.  They may argue that they can't know which books are plagiarized and it's not their responsibility to check.  If they do, they'll look really, really stupid.  Every other major business is held accountable by the law, and they're no different.  They think they're big and they can do what they want.  Too bad.

You see, Amazon is a business associate of America's sleaziest serial plagiarist- David B. Boyer.  Being associated with a big time plagiarist is probably bad for business.   Not good for their image.

It's my first federal complaint.  But Barnes and Noble is next in line.

Right now, they're all collecting profits from stolen writing and not even checking their raw materials (our writing).  Think about this- if B Thoughtful can track down that these works are stolen, why can't Amazon get off their corporate ass and do the same?

Maybe they ought to pay B Thoughtful to do it for them.  Or start doing it themselves.  Right now they look like they enjoy being partners with plagiarists because they keep publishing stolen works and splitting the profits with the plagiarists.

And, so you can see what I sent the Federal Trade Commission, here's the formal complaint I filed:

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"I've bought books from Amazon by an author David B. Boyer of Vincennes, IN that turned out to be plagiarized.  I informed amazon that they were plagiarized and they are still selling them.  In fact, mine isnt the only case.  David B. Boyer is the most prolific in stealing other writers works, having them turned into books by Amazon and others so they both profit from them, but Ive been reading about all sorts of other authors that find their works stolen, turned into books by Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Lulu then sold.  They then pay the plagiarist a share of the profits for the stolen goods.  Doesnt that make them business partners.  These are physical goods and they are stolen.  And, they sell them across the country.  Isnt that across state lines?

And Amazon and Barnes and Noble have the resources to check and see if the books are stolen content.  If another company bought stolen goods and kept reselling them for profit, wouldnt that be Consumer Fraud?

Theress a whole webwsite devoted to this one thief David Boyer and Amazon has been there and they still have all sorts of his stolen books up for sale.  The Website is http:b-thoughtful2.blogspot.com

This is just blatant consumer fraud.  But Amazon won't stop."

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7 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Get 'em, Rick!

Rick said...

Thanks, Alex.

Heck of it is, Amazon has all the resources in the world to check and see if the work they publish is plagiarized. When they were just re-sellers, things were a little different. Now they're publishers.

Anonymous said...

The fact he makes no secret about it makes it even worse. It's not like this is something new with him, so I fail to see why Amazon refuses to do anything. Hell, he can't be making them that much money.

Rick said...

You're right, Brent. That's the mystery. Even the aggregated totals of a sleaze like Boyer are chump change to Amazon.

All they would have to do is recognize the principle that when they became a publisher, they have to be responsible enough to validate the provenance of what they're publishing.

They're smart people at Amazon, it's just wouldn't hurt them to protect their writers. They have the money and the means to do it.

J E Fritz said...

I hope they take this seriously. If they're not making an effort to root out such fraud, Amazon is just as guilty as the plagiarizers.

Rick said...

Me, too, JE. It's frustrating to have to spend so much time on this, but I know if as a community we don't get some action on this, we'll always be at risk with no remedy.

Charles Gramlich said...

thanks for the reminder. I was able to sign if from my home computer. my work computer wouldn't let me, for unknown reasons.