Author Thomas Rey Benjey filed a lawsuit against Amazon/BookSurge alleging copyright infringement.

For the basics, click here: https://news.justia.com/cases/featured/pennsylvania/pamdce/1:2008cv01068/72341/

This is the statement Tom Benjey sent to WritersWeekly.com:



In August, 2005 my first book was well along in the editing phase and I needed a digital printer to print my galley proofs (AKA Advance Reading Copies). BookSurge advertised a sale and silly me thought that because they were then an Amazon company they must have been reputable. I sent them PDFs and they eventually produced a proof with grossly unequal outside margins. Neither I nor my experienced graphic designer could get them to correct the problem and they had my money. BookSurge blamed my PDF, but the graphic designer assured me that they were done correctly. So, my only options were to eat the money or find another printer.

The schedule didn’t allow time for going with another digital printer. Shoddy galleys were the result. I thought I was done with BookSurge after a reputable printer offset print the book and a wholesaler agreed to handle the book. Things were going well, too well.

Then, one evening in October, 2006, I received an email from BookSurge asking for a bank account number to send royalties to. As it turns out they were printing shoddy BookSurge galleys to fill orders rather than obtaining finished copies from a wholesaler or the distributor. Not only were they infringing on my copyright, they were harming my reputation by foisting off unfinished books of poor quality as being the real thing.

Don’t expect any remorse. Two years later, we’re in federal court when they could have simply replaced the books they shipped with the proper ones and given me a little free advertising for the harm they did, they chose to insult me.

How could I have prevented this? The only thing that comes to mind is simply not doing business with BookSurge because, once they had my digital files they had the ability to print my book. And there’s no sure way of keeping them from doing it again.



Read more about this case HERE.

You can see Tom’s blog posting here:
https://tombenjey.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/amazoncom-copyright-infringement/

Tom would surely appreciate hearing other authors’ opinions about his case! You can contact him at:
benjey -at- pa.net

If Amazon wants to send us a comment, we’d gladly post it right here.

If anyone else obtains a comment from Amazon, let us know and we’ll post a link to your website/article right here as well.