亚马逊山寨图书泛滥成灾

    直到不久之前，如果在亚马逊网站的搜索框里键入“斯蒂夫•乔布斯、艾萨克”，第一个跳出来的结果可不是沃尔特•艾萨克森那本畅销书。搜索结果里排名第一的书也叫《乔布斯传》，连作者的名字也很像——艾萨克•沃辛顿（Isaac Worthington）。这本书似乎也有人买，虽然有个读者给了它一星差评，而且称其为“粗制滥造的小册子”。沃辛顿的这本书没准是对杰夫•斯托布斯（Jeve Stobs，与Steve Jobs拼写相似，系作者为讽刺而生造的人名——译注）独家专访的作品。

    亚马逊上有不少与畅销书书名相仿的山寨作品。在全球引起轰动的《苍白50色》（Fifty Shades of Grey）是一部口味怪异的爱情小说，也是亚马逊的头号畅销书。而亚马逊上还有一本书叫《苍白35色》（Thirty-Five Shades of Grey）。这两本书的作者大名都以缩写字母开头——E. L. 詹姆斯和J. D.利特，而它们又都是三部曲的第一部，讲的都是一位少女是如何与一个成功老男人陷入专制性爱的故事。《苍白50色》的出版商称这本书是“一本深深吸引你、永远与你相伴的故事”。而四月初面世的《苍白35色》的作者和出版商显然觉得这句话和他们的书同样也是绝配，于是干脆一字不差地照搬到自己的书上。亚马逊上类似的山寨书委实不少：比如《我是龙纹身女孩》（I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo）（仿冒《龙纹身女孩》）和《暮光之城》（Twilight New Moon）（仿冒《暮光之城：新月》）。它们其实都不是你真正想找的书。

    而如果想在亚马逊上购买畅销书《思考，或快或慢》（Thinking, Fast and Slow），点击时可要当心了。该书作者是诺贝尔奖获得者、经济学家丹尼尔•卡尼曼。很多想买它的读者找到的却是卡尔•丹尼尔斯的《或快或慢的思考》（Fast and Slow Thinking），这本书不久前还在亚马逊上有售。卡尼曼对自己的李鬼兄弟的评价是：“根本就没这么个专家，它纯粹是剽窃。人们给它的评论也令人忍俊不禁。让人震惊的是，亚马逊竟会允许这种事发生。”

    可能更让人震惊的是，亚马逊不仅出售山寨书，居然还亲自帮这些作者攒这种书。《财富》杂志（Fortune）发现，亚马逊上所有这些仿冒痕迹明显的作品都是“创作空间”（CreateSpace）一手炮制的。这是亚马逊的一个部门。作者们可以运用“创作空间”的系统设计并自助出版书籍。这些书随后就可在亚马逊网站和其他网站上出售，所得收益由亚马逊和作者分享。这种关系与大多数出版商与作者的关系不同，但读者却完全不知情。 “创作空间”在亚马逊网站和其他网站上都被列为这些书的出版商之一。

    曾任西蒙与舒斯特出版公司（Simon & Schuster）律师的埃里克•雷曼称：“这种书就相当于垃圾邮件。亚马逊应该制止这种事。无论是对读者还是对出版业来说，这种做法都贻害无穷。”

    上周，《财富》杂志就这种明显的作假行为联系了亚马逊公司，随后亚马逊删除了沃辛顿和丹尼尔的相关页面。一位女发言人称，亚马逊不会继续销售这些书籍了。但是，这两本书仍然在以“创作空间”的名义在其他网站上销售。亚马逊的发言人称，公司有一套专门的流程，专门检查并删除那些不能“改善用户体验”的图书。他还表示，亚马逊已拒绝或删除了“上千本”书籍。他说：“我们希望不断改进方法。”而《斯蒂夫•乔布斯传》（Steve Jobs）的出版商，即西蒙与舒斯特出版公司的发言人拒绝就此发表评论。

    《我是龙纹身女孩》的作者凯伦•皮布尔斯称，她已通过“创作空间”自助出版了约一万本书，但不是所有书都署她的本名。她说：“我是单身母亲，孩子在家上学。”她还表示，每个月她能卖掉“成千上万本书”。“自助出版对我来说是很不错的收入来源。每个月我都有理想的版税进账。”

    Until recently, if you had typed "Steve Jobs Isaac" into the online retailer's search box, the first choice that popped up wasn't the best selling book by Walter Isaacson, but instead one with the same name and a similarly sounding author, Isaac Worthington. The book appears to be selling, even though Amazon's one reviewer gives the book a single star and calls it a "poorly produced pamphlet." Presumably, Worthington's book is based on exclusive interviews with Jeve Stobs.

    There are a number of books on Amazon with similar titles to much more popular ones. Fifty Shades of Grey, the steamy romance novel that has created buzz around the world, is the No. 1 selling book on Amazon. Also available on Amazon: Thirty-Five Shades of Grey. Both books are written by authors with two first initials – E. L. James and J. D. Lyte – and both are the first in a trilogy about a young girl who falls for an older, successful man with a taste for domineering sex. The publisher of the bestseller Fifty says the book is "a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever." The author and publisher of Thirty-Five, which came out in early April, apparently believe that description fits their book as well, word-for-word. Also selling on Amazon is I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Twilight New Moon. Neither is the book you are likely looking for.

    And if you want to buy bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow on Amazon, be careful where you click. A number of Amazon shoppers looking for the book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman ended up with Fast and Slow Thinking by Karl Daniels, which until recently was also on Amazon. Says Kahneman of his doppelganger, "There is no such expert, it's a rip-off. The comments on it are quite amusing – rather shocking that Amazon allows this sort of thing."

    It's perhaps more shocking that Amazon (AMZN) not only sells the books, it's also helping their authors create them. All of the apparent copycat books that Fortune found on Amazon were made through CreateSpace, which is a division of Amazon. Authors can use CreateSpace's system to design and self-publish their own books. The books then go on sale on Amazon and other sites. Amazon splits the proceeds with authors. It's a different relationship than most publishers have with their authors, but there is no way for consumers to know that. On Amazon and other sites, CreateSpace is listed as the publisher of the books.

    "It's the book equivalent of spam," says lawyer Eric Rayman, a former attorney for Simon & Schuster. "Amazon should be taking steps to stop this. It's bad for consumers and it's bad for the book business."

    After Fortune contacted Amazon late last week about the apparent fakes, the company removed the pages for the Worthington and Daniels books from its site. A spokeswoman says Amazon is no longer selling the books. Both books, though, are still for sale on other sites with Amazon's CreateSpace listed as the publisher. An Amazon spokeswoman says the firm has a process in place to detect and remove books that don't "improve the customer experience." The spokeswoman said Amazon has rejected or removed "thousands" of books. "We expect to keep improving our approach," says the spokeswoman. A spokesperson for Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, declined to comment.

    Karen Peebles, who is the author of I am the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, says she has self-published around 10,000 books though CreateSpace, not all of which are in her own name. "I am a single mother who home schools her children," says Peebles, who says she sells "thousands and thousands" of books a month. "Self-publishing is a great way for me to make income. I receive a pretty nice royalty every month."