亚马逊山寨图书泛滥成灾

    皮布尔斯称，“创作空间”有自己的行为准则，但这套准则非常笼统。实际上，不仅亚马逊从未拒绝过皮布尔斯的作品，其他网络零售商也从未向她提出任何质疑，甚至有一次，她提交了一本书，标题几乎与已故瑞典惊悚小说家斯蒂格•拉赫松的国际畅销作品完全雷同，也照样蒙混过关。按照她的说法，她这本书在拉赫松的作品出版前就已经卖出了“上百本，甚至上千本”。但这并不是事实。拉赫松的书是2004年出版的，2008年才在美国发行。而她的书虽是2008年获得版权，但直到2010年年中才在亚马逊上推出。而拉赫松的书在这之前早就已在美国大卖了。一位网友给她的作品打了一星差评，同时留言说：“也许我会喜欢这个作者的下一本书——《我是玩火的女孩》（模仿拉赫松的另一部作品，《玩火女孩》，已在讽刺仿冒者——译注）。”

    与《财富》杂志查看过的许多山寨之作一样，沃辛顿的《斯蒂夫•乔布斯传》排版拙劣。亚马逊网站上可供预览的前几页文字硕大无朋，与维基百科上介绍斯蒂夫•乔布斯的有关文字十分相似，封底文字也基本相同。亚马逊网站上并无其他艾萨克•沃辛顿所著大作，而网站和书上也没有这个作者的任何介绍。卡尔•丹尼尔斯看来也是个离群索居、一书成名的神奇作者。这两位的书版权都属于SWI Books公司。亚马逊拒绝向《财富》杂志透露有关SWI的任何信息，也不肯表明自己是否还在销售这家公司的其他作品。

    上周，美国司法部（the Department of Justice）起诉了苹果公司（Apple）和五家出版商。据称，苹果和出版商合谋推高了电子书书价。此举据说抢夺了亚马逊的市场份额。

    无论对消费者还是对图书出版业来说，山寨图书都是一个日益严峻的大问题。自助出版物销售公司Smashwords的创始人马克•柯克表示，他经常收到完全仿冒的书，或是用网上内容东拼西凑的书。他的公司拒绝发行这类书籍。他说，这类书格式古怪，很容易看出是从别处剽窃的。不过，他常能在亚马逊和其他网站上看到Smashwords拒绝销售的山寨书。他说：“我很惊讶，亚马逊怎么会让这种书大行其道。炮制这些书的人明显是想糊弄读者。”

    译者：清远

    Peebles says CreateSpace has guidelines, but they are minimal. Not only has Amazon never rejected one of her books, Peebles says she's never even been questioned by the online retailer, not even about the one with a nearly identical title to the international bestseller by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson. Peebles says her book, which she has sold "hundreds, maybe thousands" came out before Larsson's. It didn't. Larsson's book was first published in 2004, and released in the U.S. in 2008. Peebles' book has a 2008 copyright, but it wasn't released by Amazon until mid-2010, well after the Larsson book had become popular in the U.S. Says a reviewer who gives Peebles' book one star on Amazon, "Perhaps I will enjoy the author's next book, 'I am the Girl who Played with Fire.'"

    Worthington's Steve Jobs book, like many of the other apparent copycats that Fortune looked at, is oddly formatted. The text on the first few pages of the book, which is all that was available for preview on Amazon, is huge and is similar to the language on the Wikipedia page about Steve Jobs. The back cover of the book has the exact same text. There is no other book by Isaac Worthington for sale on Amazon, and neither the site nor the book has any information about the author. Karl Daniels also appears to be a reclusive one-book wonder. Both the Daniels book and the Worthington book are copyrighted SWI Books. Amazon declined to give Fortune any information about SWI or say whether Amazon sells any other books from the company on its site.

    Last week, the Department of Justice sued Apple (AAPL) and five book publishers. According to the suit, Apple and the book publishers conspired to push up the price of e-books. The moves were reportedly made to take market share away from Amazon.

    Spam books are a growing problem for consumers and the book industry. Mark Coker, who is the founder of a Smashwords, a distributor of self-published books, says he regularly receives books that are exact copies of other books, or a compilation of stuff that is readily available on the Internet. He says his company refuses to distribute these books. Coker says odd formatting is an easy tip-off that a book is copied from elsewhere. Nonetheless, he says he often sees books that his company has rejected show up on Amazon and elsewhere. "I'm surprised Amazon lets books like these go through," says Coker. "Whoever created these books are obviously trying to confuse consumers."