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.