Plagiarism on Amazon

[bobsmith1972]

More plagiarism on Amazon

Not sure what section of the forum to post this in but here we go.

There is someone on Amazon with the name "Johnathan Bishop" that has ripped off about 50 stories word for word from this site and is "selling" them for profit in both kindle and paperback formats as his own work.

He has his own author bio on the US site.
http://www.amazon.com/Johnathan-Bishop/e/B00CLAKTGW/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1430156562&sr=8-1

I have done research and left reviews on the UK Amazon site for each story he has published, with the link for the exact story and author he has ripped off from Literotica.
Amazon have been contacted but don't seem to care about plagiarism.

A few examples below...

"A Deal With The Devil" by Johnathan Bishop is a word for word ripoff of the story "With Interest" by Jazz.E

"The Boss, My Slut" is a ripoff of "My Boss" by DVS

"The Retreat" is a ripoff of "The Cabin" by MaddieKim

"Captive" is a ripoff of "Captive by Oceangirl801

"The S&M Spa" is a ripoff of "Sam's Spa Chronicles" by badsam689

"Entering The Dungeon" is a ripoff of "Dungeon" by fadinglory_uk

 

[Handley_Page]

I suggest you contact Lauren

 

[bobsmith1972]

Hi.
How can I contact her?

Just found another plagiarist on Amazon stealing stories from here. Ron Mexico.

 

[sr71plt]

Hi.
How can I contact her?

Just found another plagiarist on Amazon stealing stories from here. Ron Mexico.

It's Laurel, who can be reached via PM (private message), upper left of this page. This is just clarification on how to reach her (and how her name is spelled)--I don't offer much hope of help from that direction.

 

[lovecraft68]

The problem with amazon is you have to be the author to complain. So all of us can contact them and tell them "Ron Mexico" is a thief, but unless it is one of the actual authors contacting them they will do nothing about it.

Back last summer Turner was caught with just shy of 300 stolen stories, amazon removed all of them, but she still somehow has an account.

I have come to the conclusion that amazon not only doesn't care, but this is a way for them to make more money. When a thief is caught, amazon keeps all money made on those sales and it does not go to the rightful author

So it profits amazon to let these people run amok as long as possible.

Smashwords catches thief after thief by searching parts of their submitted books. You can't tell me amazon does not have the same technology, they just don't care.

Same with their content, they said back in Oct 2014 you can no longer use mom/dad/sis in a title...now go search for them and see how many you find but when they feel like it they will randomly block a book with that content and toss the author even though there are hundreds of the same content up there

Kind of reminds me of here...

Amazon makes wal mart look ethical.

 

[sr71plt]

But it does give you something else to foam at the mouth about.

 

[lovecraft68]

But it does give you something else to foam at the mouth about.

And another chance for you to yap at my heels.

You really are like gum on the bottom of a shoe

 

[sr71plt]

It's not universally true that only the original author can approach Amazon. If you have a publisher for the work, the publisher is the one who would approach Amazon. The publisher has taken responsibility for that and has as much at stake as the author does. And Amazon is likely to respond quicker and better to a publisher. Of course, Literotica is a de facto publisher of works. Years ago, forum posters claimed that all you had to do was notify site administration and they'd take care of it. I haven't seen claims in recent years of this getting you anywhere.

Technically, a distributor doesn't have to get into the she said/he said game on this. Ownership in the United States is based on who has the earliest formal copyright filing on the work and can produce that evidence. Barring that, a distributor doesn't have to judge ownership. Apparently Smashwords is willing to do so and Amazon isn't (both to save the effort and, yes, to swallow the takings from any work that hasn't been fully protected).

So, this is yet another thing that a self-publisher is more at risk about than an author with a publisher is.

I'm sure, of course, that Hatecraft will burp up a long, attacking rant on why that isn't so.

If you can get Amazon to pull the book, though, more power and credit to you.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

And it might be a good idea to read this thread....http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555

 

[lovecraft68]

And it might be a good idea to read this thread....http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555

But again, you have to be the author or the publisher of the author to get amazon to take action.

The Turner thing here started when Smashwords contacted me saying Turner had one of my books and when she was questioned tried to turn it back around on me, but I had a proof the story was mine including the lit link to the original.

A person who has been handling some publishing for me contacted amazon on my behalf and they had her fill out a form and file the complaint formerly months later no response.

The book was pulled in fact they pulled close to 300 of her books meaning they felt they were stolen, yet her account remains, meanwhile they will harass other authors across the board including things like banning an excessia author's book for Bestiality because there was a dog on the cover of the book...

yet they have books about women fucking dobermans and other dogs all over their site.

They're inconsistent at best, but more accurately they are flat out dishonest.

No longer the biggest game in town either.

 

[someoneyouknow]

I hear there's this thing called social media which, supposedly, has the wondrous ability to shame folks who do wrong into doing right.

I'm not up on how it works, but it might be something to look into to see how it could be used to call out Amazon and force them to not only take down the plagiarized works, but also get them to give the money this shyster has made and distribute it to the rightful authors.

 

[lovecraft68]

I hear there's this thing called social media which, supposedly, has the wondrous ability to shame folks who do wrong into doing right.

I'm not up on how it works, but it might be something to look into to see how it could be used to call out Amazon and force them to not only take down the plagiarized works, but also get them to give the money this shyster has made and distribute it to the rightful authors.

There have been blogs out the ass about amazon's unfair treatment to indy authors, their scams and dishonesty, their double standards. There have been petitions that have gotten thousands of signatures to get them to change their policies or admit the unfairness of them...

They are amazon, they could buy social media if they wanted to and shame is a word Bezos would have to look up. Hell he is in bed with the damn DOD, they're using his cloud, he can do what he wants.

 

[Laurel]

Not sure what section of the forum to post this in but here we go.

There is someone on Amazon with the name "Johnathan Bishop" that has ripped off about 50 stories word for word from this site and is "selling" them for profit in both kindle and paperback formats as his own work.

He has his own author bio on the US site.
http://www.amazon.com/Johnathan-Bishop/e/B00CLAKTGW/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1430156562&sr=8-1

I have done research and left reviews on the UK Amazon site for each story he has published, with the link for the exact story and author he has ripped off from Literotica.
Amazon have been contacted but don't seem to care about plagiarism.

Please read the original post in this thread:
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555

 

[NaokoSmith]

Hi.
How can I contact her?

Just found another plagiarist on Amazon stealing stories from here. Ron Mexico.

That was kind of you to report these two plagiarists. Hopefully the authors concerned will contact Amazon as per the thread about how to do this and have the story thieves removed.

 

[Combat323]

Amazing

This Johnathan Bishop guy has never written an original story. If you go to his Amazon page, select a free preview of one of his books, and Google any sentence (without Character names, he does change those) followed by site:Literotica.com, the first item in the search results is the original story as published on this site.

The amazing thing is that there are no exceptions. Every single thing the guy has published is taken from Literotica. He's also a member of the "Erotica" group on Facebook and has a Tumblr page, and he uses those to market "his" work.

I posted a comment on his Amazon author page and reviewed one of "his" stories, "Transformed", originally "Transformed Into A Shemale" posted on Literotica.com in 2002 by girlboybootsie. Maybe it will stop one person from buying a book from this thief.

Maybe if we all got on and commented/reviewed where these people sell other's work, we could put a dent in the problem. I hope at least some of the Authors whose work has been stolen will pursue the matter with Amazon, though it seems he prefers to steal from less active members. For instance, he's taken two story series from quimmaster, who hasn't put anything on this site for five years. "The House Sitter" is taken from Croctden, who hasn't posted anything since '09.

 

[sr71plt]

Maybe if we all got on and commented/reviewed where these people sell other's work, we could put a dent in the problem. I hope at least some of the Authors whose work has been stolen will pursue the matter with Amazon, though it seems he prefers to steal from less active members. For instance, he's taken two story series from quimmaster, who hasn't put anything on this site for five years. "The House Sitter" is taken from Croctden, who hasn't posted anything since '09.

Yes, I posted a "this appears to be stolen work" on the Amazon page of a recent thief, and Amazon left the comment there until it took the entry down altogether.

 

[bobsmith1972]

I've "reviewed" every single one of Johnathan Bishop's releases on Amazon UK stating which story he has stolen from Literotica. Maybe if people could do the same for the Amazon US site as suggested by Combat323
I found someone called E.F. Turner early last year and reported them to Smashwords about plagiarism. They got taken off pretty swiftly and Amazon removed them not long after that.
Now there's this Ron Mexico...

 

[Combat323]

Another nice thing about doing a review is that you get to rate the book on a 1-5 scale. Since none of this guy's books have been rated, it's easy to go through and make sure they all get the score they deserve. Also, after you write the first review, you can cut-and-paste much of it into subsequent reviews, just as the "author" did when "creating" his books.

 

[bobsmith1972]

Well it now seems Amazon have removed all of Johnathan Bishop's kindle books. There's still quite a few left but only available in paperback. Maybe they're print on demand.

But it's a result!!!

Came across another plagiarist just now - Christy Anderson.

 

[glynndah]

I recently came across a blog or something which suggested that to make money one could copy and paste public domain books into Amazon and make money by selling them. Perhaps some would-be entrepreneurs have stepped up their game.

 

[Combat323]

He still has Kindle books on the U.S. side of Amazon. You'd think that there would be some communication between Amazon US & Amazon UK on these things.

 

[bobsmith1972]

Yes he does, but there are only four. They are books of dreadful poetry, which might possibly be his own work.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

But it does give you something else to foam at the mouth about.

So would you if Jonathan Bishop was ripping off your stories.

The magic symbol © gives an author legal copyright, which is why Lit uses it.

It doesn't give you the right to take legal action against the plagiarist.

As far as I can see, the only advantage of filing a copyright is if you are prepared to invest your money in expensive lawyers.

Manu's advice seems good but why not create a sort of class action of authors affected by Bishop, with Laurel's backing, to have a go at Amazon's 'Who cares about copyright stance'.

 

[Combat323]

Yes he does, but there are only four. They are books of dreadful poetry, which might possibly be his own work.

No, he can't even write bad poetry. It's cut and pasted from here as well, though he did take poetic license and change "Upon the Rack" so the first line repeated.

 

[sr71plt]

So would you if Jonathan Bishop was ripping off your stories.

So would I what? No, I don't hyperventilate when my stories get ripped off for the market, which they occasionally do. I have a publisher to do the hyperventilation and I understood and accepted the risks when I went into the business. You probably wouldn't understand, not having done any writing for nine years yourself, let alone publishing.

It doesn't give you the right to take legal action against the plagiarist.

As far as I can see, the only advantage of filing a copyright is if you are prepared to invest your money in expensive lawyers.

The "only other" reason I guess is that it's the only thing that has any legal clout to getting anything done. So, the "only other thing" is that it's the whole ball of wax beyond bluff and moral suasion to make any effort to protect your work have any meaning at all.

But again, why are you worrying about this? It has nothing to do with you.

Oh, that's right. You have to get in your daily dose of razzing me irrelevantly.