Illegal copies are also a rampant problem on Amazon, though, so this increases the odds that the big Buy Button ships you a counterfeit.

https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/844030960333152256

https://www.ft.com/content/5dba91b0-e1c7-11e6-8405-9e5580d6e...

https://www.inc.com/sonya-mann/amazon-counterfeits-no-starch...

We've had at least 5 books counterfeited on Amazon. In each case the counterfeit inventory replaced our inventory and owned the Buy button.

> They offer no conclusion on how sellers can materialize thousands of copies of a book out of thin air.

Acquiring used books and selling them as new. (Obviously, its not out of thin air, but that's not at all required for the problem.) That's at least one way.

> "Not a single cent goes to the publisher" can only be true if they are selling illegal copies printed somewhere else, which I imagine would be extremely easy to spot.

By whom? It might be easy to spot that it was a lower quality work if you compared it to the genuine article, but that doesn't really tell you that its a counterfeit vs. a problem somewhere in the legitimate supply chain that resulted in a low-quality run. Without a genuine article to compare against, there's no way to distinguish it at all from the publisher just doing low quality work to cut costs.

> "slightly used" books, the publisher and author have already been paid

They haven't been paid for each copy that was sold to the end purchaser as "new"; both the end purchaser (who isn't getting what they paid for) and the publisher (who isn't getting their share of the transaction the end purchaser intended to make) are victims.

Are you suggesting that publishers should get paid _again_ for every transaction involving used books? That's part of the nonsense.

> They offer no conclusion on how sellers can materialize thousands of copies of a book out of thin air.

Claimed, but unverified stock? Print-on-demand counterfeiting.

Though they don't need to materialise books out of thin air. They can buy up used books and mark them as new, for instance.

I think it would not be that hard to counterfeit a Harry Potter book, print a few thousand copies in China and put them on Amazon. Or is there some way of counterfeit proofing in books?

I think it would be difficult. You'd have to get copies of the book's content and cover art that are suitable for print and then find a press willing and able to create copies that are indistinguishable from the originals. Now you have bought and paid for 10k or more books sitting in China or some place where you think you're mostly safe from copyright enforcement. You'll have to ship those books to Amazon's warehouse and hope Amazon doesn't realize what you're doing and hope the publisher doesn't look for these kinds of scams and have your inventory confiscated while they file criminal charges against you. You're also hoping that consumers don't realize their copies aren't the same quality they expected and start negatively reviewing you... and for how much profit?

I'm not sure about the volume, but I have encountered this relatively frequently on Amazon. To be fair, is is less common on in-copyright books, but it is a problem.

Finding a press isn't a problem for these people. There are tons and tons of such outlets and some of them are apparently less reputable or more willing to look the other way than others. On-demand printing has completely changed the game.

I think one way of getting around the "Amazon caught on" problem is by having many, many "different" sellers selling from your same inventory. The reviews aren't a big problem, because Amazon will show the same reviews for different versions of the same book - even if it has different sellers, or is a different translation, or a different edition. (Ignoring all this, this makes a a HUGE pain when trying to decide which translation of a book to buy; normally I don't care much about edition, but if it's a foreign language work I want to find out what translation people prefer.)

Generally at least you get a poor-quality of the book, but sometimes the scam descends to the level of e.g., printing and binding the Wikipedia article of the book.

As I mentioned above, I have almost completely given up on buying books on Amazon because of these problems. Unless it's Sold By Amazon and Fulfilled by Amazon, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole.

I think you're right, it's not exactly rare to have these kinds of problems on Amazon.

Here's an interesting example: Stroustrup's "A Tour of C++".

A purchaser warns: "Buyer beware: Amazon is selling counterfiets": https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R26ANHFODF42VE/re...

Notice the top comment on the review is from Stroustrup:

"Thanks for warning others about this appalling fake. I'm shocked. After seeing your explanation, I have contacted Addison Wesley."

I'm not sure if the books were really outright fakes or just a "print on demand" of very poor quality. I wouldn't be very happy either way though as a customer.

> Amazon will show the same reviews for different versions of the same book - even if it has different sellers, or is a different translation, or a different edition. (Ignoring all this, this makes a a HUGE pain when trying to decide which translation of a book to buy; normally I don't care much about edition, but if it's a foreign language work I want to find out what translation people prefer.

It's even worse -- Amazon will show "This book is available on Kindle" and link to a completely different translation's Kindle version. They are not equivalent.

It is easy to create perfect covers via Photoshop for less than a couple hundred bucks. Content for ultra popular books should be easy to get as well in great condition.