👤stock_toaster🕑13y🔼226🗨️84

(Replying to PARENT post)

"I was insulted and hurt by this message. It’s arrogant and it is confrontational. It makes no effort to address the specifics of the e-mail."

I feel like I'm missing something here. I read the emails and their responses seem perfectly acceptable to me, I am not picking up an arrogant or confrontational tone and think they did their best to answer the issue. The author asserts a copyleft license to the work and fully expects Amazon to be 100% compatible with it (one could almost say arrogantly so) and does not, in my opinion, assert exclusive publishing rights of the work. Amazon state they are not confident author holds the exclusive publishing rights and that this is not acceptable on the Kindle Store, linking to the relevant policy guideline. As someone else has pointed out, the author is also not the customer here, they are in effect negotiating a business deal with Amazon, Amazon do not need to tip-toe around the issue. I think the author was a little bit over sensitive here.

If I am missing something here please fill me in.

👤da_n🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I'm confused, the Amazon folks were complaining that he was trying to sell otherwise free information [1], did the OP just miss that? Seems like putting the Kindle version up for free would have removed their complaint.

[1] Amazon has had a huge problem with people who run through Google Books, find a book from before 1923, and then re-publish it for money in the Kindle store, only to have Amazon's customers get angry and bent out of shape when they realize they have been 'ripped off' buying something they could have gotten for free.

👤ChuckMcM🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

"In other news, the Arch Linux Handbook can be downloaded in .mobi format, free of charge, from http://archlinux.ca/arch_linux_handbook_3.mobi "

Problem solved? The benefit of having it listed on Amazon is probably negligible - it's not all that hard dragging a file to your mounted Kindle.

👤sdfjkl🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Attention all CEOs/high level folks: This is the exact reason why you need to regularly answer questions in your customer service queue and monitor responses (at least some of the time). Yes, sometimes things like this happen, but if you have first hand experience helping your customers resolve problems, you're much less likely to end up with an email chain trending on HN/reddit/etc.
👤kevinconroy🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I don't think the author understands what "customer-centric" means. People who publish books for the kindle aren't Amazon's customer, the people who buy kindle books are.

Amazon applying a quality guideline that stops people republishing copyleft content makes perfect sense from a consumer viewpoint.

👤ig1🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

It explicitly states on their content guidelines page they do not accept content publicly accessible from the web. Otherwise people could just publish Wikipedia pages.

The author should check the guidelines before going on accusatory rants.

👤sswezey🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I have a similar problem with my Vim book. Amazon blocked its sales after I updated it and asked them to make the update available to all 25000+ people who have downloaded it so far. They are blocking the sales, but allow negative reviews to be posted. I released it as a separate book, you can get it while it is still available at http://thevimbook.com
👤surfingdino🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

A confusing situation - do I have the facts right?

Amazon is ok with publishing public domain works. However, this is not a public domain work so it doesn't matter.

GNU Free Doc License, just like GPL, doesn't care if you charge money or not; only that you pass along the content when you distribute and that you don't add restrictions on what people can do with the content.

Amazon states in their rules that they won't accept freely redistributable content unless the submitting author is also the copyright owner.

Author does not explicitly state that he is the copyright owner in his response to Amazon, which explains the rejection.

Author does correctly state that GNU Doc License allows redistribution even if you are not the copyright owner. Thus he may have been trying to make a political point that it shouldn't matter if he is the copyright owner or not since he has the right to redistribute, for profit, from the license?

In any event, it doesn't matter since Amazon's stated policy is not to accept works in this precise scenario. Why, I don't know; but it is their right to do so.

👤presto8🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Given that it is essentially community created its understandable that Amazon feels unsure about who has the "exclusive publishing rights" to it.
👤Havoc🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I wish the iOS reviewers were this clear and concise. Their rejection information would be something like: Your book has been rejected because it doesn't comply with App Store Review guideline 123.a.2: Apps that are like something else on the internet will be rejected, apps that may contain other things from other people may be rejected, apps that provide limited value when they imply they provide substantial value may be rejected.
👤spaghetti🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I refuse to use Amazon for anything because of stuff like this.

They will randomly ban your books, kill your services, and do what random politicians or Internet mobs tell them without any sort of due process.

People love to give me flack for it at the office...

👤armored_mammal🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Another day another headline of a closed repository rejecting something. In this case, it's information for an open source project. Nevermind that these repositories are not beholden to us, as a FLOSS proselytizer, it pains me that my peers so readily build value for these closed repositories in much the same way that publically-funded research papers get stashed behind paywalls. Models exist for publishing for profit outside of the walled gardens and they do succeed. If a potential publisher can be convinced to give it away and pray, so be it. As a community we should really determine where our allegiances lie and what are real priorities. It's trivial to put a book on a E-reader and just as trivial to run a website to publish on.
👤jmilkbal🕑13y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

It doesn't say anywhere (or I'm missing it) whether he wanted to sell the book or give it for free.
👤domdelimar🕑13y🔼0🗨️0