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Comment by rubyfan | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t it more accurate that a seller is using Amazon’s publishing platform to counterfeit and sell other publishers books?

The title suggests Amazon has wrongdoing here. You could make the case that they need more policing and review but it’s not like Amazon is knowingly selling counterfeit here.

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Considering that Amazon fulfills orders using counterfeit items from suppliers that they know have previously provided fakes to customers, and then removes reviews that point out counterfeits, I’d say they’re complicit in it. I’ve personally had a review removed that called out an obviously counterfeit item I received. That was two years ago and the seller is still on Amazon, and Amazon is still removing other reviewers’ bad reviews of them.

This seems like a long-term recipe for disaster for Amazon.

Why do it? Or am I being naive? Or is it too difficult to clamp down on fakes?

Pretty sure selling counterfeit goods, or committing fraud by advertising for them, is illegal. Does hiding behind "but it's not us selling it" work better for stores than for content hosts? What about fraudulent "fulfilled by Amazon" products?

Amazon has a well known history of simply ignoring copyright complaints. We can assume at this point Amazon is the malicious actor here.

Amazon printed, packaged, sorted, shipped and charged the buyer for the book. And it wasn't even the first time. Who is this mysterious third party that should be responsible here?

Why would "we fully automated our counterfeiting process" be an excuse?

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