Amazon owns copyright to review?
Did you know that once you post a review on Amazon, they own the rights to the review? And they prevent authors from using the review for promotional purposes? That’s right. Even to use an excerpt, authors have to receive permission from Amazon!
According to Amazon’s Community Guidelines for Your Profile and Conduct: We reserve the right to restrict or remove any and all uses or Content that we determine in our sole discretion is harmful to our systems, network, reputation, or goodwill, to other Amazon.com customers, or to any third party. The following non-exhaustive list details the kinds of conduct or Content that is prohibited: The use of the Service for commercial purposes such as advertising, promotion, or solicitation.
Source: ePublish a Book Amazon and Book Review Ownership
I dunno about you, but that sounds like one of the things good ole crowd revolution can tell Amazon to behave better about.
Time for a bit of a ruckus, methinks. 800lb gorilla, feel the slap of my keyboard, Zounds!
brendan
, Amazon will pay Passive Guy a small affiliate commission on any of your purchases.
As an individual who occasionally writes reviews for books and other products on Amazon.com, I am inclined to side with Amazon. I never agreed to allow my review to be used commercially by anyone other than Amazon. If another business wishes to use my review let them contact me directly so that I can decide for myself.
Stand down, lad. No need for an insurrection.
Actually, the author or the article has their knickers in a twist over nothing. And if you read the full article, and Amazon’s responses to her, they make it all perfectly clear.
Let’s say I write a review of Getaway, by Lisa Brackmann and post it on Amazon* (which I did). I put a lot of thought and work into that review. Amazon’s policy is that I’ve granted them non-exclusive rights to use that review, but *I* retain the full copyright to it.
Non-exclusive means I can go ahead and post that exact same review on B&N, Goodreads, Walmart, and on the UK version at Waterstones (which I did). And the copyright still belongs to me.
Now let’s say Ms. Brackmann REALLY likes that review and would like to post it on her website. Or her publisher (SOHO Press) likes it and wants to use it in promotional material. Amazon’s policy is simply stating that they have to ask MY permission (as the copyright holder) before they do that. They can’t just lift it off Amazon and use it.
Which seems a perfectly reasonable and sensible thing to me.
*While I encourage you to look up Ms. Brackmann’s work on the bookselling site of your choice, don’t go looking for any review by Kat Sheridan. The lovely thing about the interwebz is that you can have as many names as you like.
Thank you. That is exactly my understanding of Amazon reviews (and I have over 150). I’m pretty sure the same rules apply on other consumer websites, enabling me to upload the same review to Amazon, Goodreads, my blog etc.
I own copyright to the review. The author can’t quote it or reproduce it without my permission – any more than I can reproduce their work without permission (most books allow quoting for the purposes of a review under a ‘fair use’ proviso).
most books allow quoting for the purposes of a review under a ‘fair use’ proviso
Books don’t have a choice about quoting for the purposes of a review under fair use. Whether they “allow” it or not, it’s legal.
Quoting excerpts of reviews–or possibly entire reviews–for the purpose of reviewing them, or critiquing their grammar, or pointing out cultural trends (noting the shift of “great” vs “awesome” vs “fascinating” over time, perhaps) is legal. Quoting them for commercial purposes? Not so much.
I suspect it gets done without permission a lot, because most people who write glowing reviews would like the book to sell better; that’s why they wrote the review. Most don’t have the attitude of “I only want it to sell better at Amazon and I don’t want my words to encourage sales on other sites.” Which doesn’t make it legal to grab the reviews, but it does explain why (AFAIK) this has never gone to court.
FWIW, I don’t believe Amazon has any right to go after people who use reviews posted there without permission. Amazon doesn’t own the copyright and can’t go after infringement; it’d be up to the author of the review to do that.
I think Amazon is misguided in this. They stand to gain if the reviews are used for promotional purposes. They do make a large percentage of the sales generated by that promotion.
This really looks like an effort to blow a minor issue way out of proportion, to me anyway.
I read the original blog post, and it seems clear the Amazon policy alluded to was directed primarily at reviewers, informing them that:
1) Amazon can take down the review anytime they want at their sole discretion, and;
2) Not to include advertising, promotion, or promotion in a review.
The reviewer in the blog post (Lily), then evidently had an email exchange with Amazon wherein one of the Amazon folks asserted that authors must request permission to post or excerpt Amazon reviews on their own websites.
While I don’t doubt that exchange took place, neither to I think it something to get spun up about. I think it more likely that this is, at most, a misunderstanding, and even if it’s not, I think it’s a non-issue. I mean, does anyone seriously think Amazon is going to invest (i.e. waste) the massive amounts of time and effort necessary to cruise the web to stop indie authors from using the reviews on their own sites? I seriously doubt Amazon cares. I excerpt my Amazon reviews on my site, with links to the full reviews on Amazon. That helps Amazon, it doesn’t hurt them, and I think they’re smart enough to know that. I’m not really worried about a visit from the Amazon review police.
Assignment of copyright under US law can only be effective if made in writing, and signed by the asignor. Even if the amazon contract said what the article claimed it could not be effective.
Thank you for that clarification.
Aha. Now I understand. IIRC, Shawn Lamb (linked to above) was catigated by Amazon discussion participants recently for copying Amazon reviews.
She displayed the same complete lack of understanding of copyright law on Amazon as she does in this blog post.
She also has some rather *interesting* views about reviewers. It seems that they are intelligent if they like her books, and stupid if they don’t (or if they suggest that she didn’t explain something properly). Unfortunately, she deleted the blog post where she made this assertion after commenters queried the logic of calling your customers stupid.
I’m totally with Amazon on this. Any review written by me is mine. I don’t give up my rights to that review when I give Amazon permission to use it.
If an author should want to use one of my reviews, they can contact me through the review comment facility and perhaps we’ll discuss.
If the rules were to change, I’d quit reviewing.
Actually, I too side with Amazon here. They are protecting their reviewers, and themselves.
I also thing we should note that, no matter how many rights they claim to reserve, they indicate (and their practice demonstrates this) that the right they are reserving most is to take down reviews on their own site.
This is one way to discourage two bad practices:
1.) authors using reviews in promotional materials (especially in spam) without permission, and
2.) duplicate reviews.
I know, I know, everybody wants to use shortcuts, including reviewers.
But duplicated content is spam. There’s a whole (and destructive) industry built around it. Google punishes duplications in their algorithms, and sites like Amazon make an effort to be sure that what is on their site is actually real, quality info and not copy/paste junk.
The reader is not served by seeing six different copies of the same review on all the major sites. And the author/book is not served either. Readers don’t have time to even stop and think “Oh, I’ve read this.” It becomes almost unconscious – you see a repeat of info and you dismiss it completely from your mind and move on.
They do this even when it isn’t a duplicate — they’ve been snowed under by so many press releases and such, that they move on when there is only a hint of duplication.
So yeah, I don’t always like the language Amazon uses in it’s various rules (reserving pretty much everything for themselves) but they’ve got to assert control over the review issues.
I wholly agree that Amazon is right to remove reviews that look spammy and contain promotional stuff. I loathe tripping over a review that says “This book is terrible, read my book (with a link) instead”. Or “I like this book because it’s just like MY book (insert link).
As for posting the same review on multiple sites, I do it all the time, because you never know where someone is going to go to purchase a book. The person with a Nook will probably be looking at reviews at B&N rather than Amazon. And folks who love Goodreads (not me) may read the review and then be driven to any number of places to buy. I also post the same review at places like Powells, for those who shop indies.
I rarely write reviews, and usually only if I really, REALLY love a book (they’re too much work to do otherwise, because I write long, meaty reviews), so I try to get as much mileage out of them as possible.
The thing is, copy/paste reviews are short cuts. Yeah, I understand why people do it, but it makes it hard for the algorithms to judge quality content. So most algorithms penalize pages with duplications. (Not so badly that you can’t overcome it, but it is penalized.)
The ideal thing is to write a fresh review for each site. I know most people will never do that, but that is why most sites have a “no copy/paste duplications” rule.
The problem is, I’m a reader and a writer, not a reviewer. I simply don’t have time to write 10-12 versions of the same review (because when I DO write a review, that’s about how many places I post it). So it’s either copy it to multiple places, or not bother writing a review at all.
Absolutely. I would not bother to review books if it were necessary to create a unique review for each site. I assume that the value of my review to the readers and the writer is in the opinion, not in the weight an algorithm gives to the page it’s written on.
Yep, that’s how most people feel, and I don’t blame them. Me, I just don’t try to put a review in more than one place.
I’m only bringing this up to point out that copy/paste is bad for the sites (and ultimately bad for the readers if the page is harder to find because of it) so they generally make it against the rules.
The truth is, the sites (and readers) don’t really need as many reviews as they get for books and movies, so they can afford to discourage them. Heck, Amazon has gone so far as to actually try to remove reviews it finds duplicated elsewhere. It’s kind of a lost cause, but they try.
Camille,
I think you’ll find that very few readers actually rely on Google searches to find books. I don’t know a single one. So it is not significantly damaging to either the reader or the author if the Google algorithms discount multiple review postings.
On the other hand, readers do go directly to various reader review sites to find books they might like. And/or they go to whichever online retailer serves their e-reading device. I want reviews for my books posted to all those (or as many as the reviewer’s patience will allow.) And I know that every other author of my acquaintance feels the same.
Personally, I would hesitate to second-guess Amazon (for example) by stating that the practice is bad for their site. Amazon is pretty savvy when it comes to marketing, and if it were detrimental, they’d quickly put a stop to it. They certainly have the technology to track down offenders instantly if they so chose. So they’re really not trying very hard.
Wendy: actually, Google plays a much bigger role than you think — but it happens earlier in the process.
Readers most often “find” books when they aren’t looking for them. They are looking for something else, and they stumble across mention of the book. They may not even be interested at that point, but it’s a critical moment, because thereafter, the book is no longer unknown.
That’s why Amazon is so generous with affiliates, and also why they encourage unique reviews which will rank high in search — because people will stumble across them on Google when looking for something else. They may not buy at that time, but as all marketers know, people generally need seven exposures to something before they are familiar enough with it to buy it.
Most people only buy books they’ve heard of. Google is how they hear of them.
(Again, not telling you not to duplicate reviews, just trying to explain why Amazon made it against the rules.)
Camille,
That totally happened to me! I randomly stumbled upon my current favorite author, Josh Lanyon, via google search. I have since bought just about everything of his (if I haven’t it was a mistake not intent).
Hint for authors: make sure to own the domain of your pen name or at least have a site dedicated to each one(if you use more than one). Also make sure to have a complete bibliography.
So would Fair Use guidelines (as in you may quote a snippet but not the whole thing) apply in this case as well?
Interesting question.
Quoting a snippet may or may not be okay. The thought did occur to me that an author could do a blog post commenting on a review and include all of the review and be covered by fair use. It would be in bad taste but we have seen it happen before.
B.S.
Yes, however you would need to consider the impact of pissing off the author of your glowing review.
Best to ask first. If they liked your book I doubt they would have a problem being quoted.
Life is too short to worry about something like this. If someone writes a bad review then you wouldn’t want to use it elsewhere. If someone wrote a good review why on earth should they object to it being used to promote a book. They liked the book didn’t they. If I wish to make use of someone’s review (which was freely given) to promote my book on Amazon thereby creating more sales why should Amazon, or the reviewer be worried. Print and be d……..
Again, I agree, John. Once I give my opinion in a review, I’ll stand by it, and you can do with it what you wish. Post it on a highway billboard, for all I care. Don’t waste my time asking permission for such a small favour. If it helps you to sell a million books, good for you.
Nevertheless, to address a previous point, I do have copyright to my review. If I choose to copy it, verbatim, to any number of sites, that is my prerogative. To categorize that as copy/paste and therefore spam is ridiculous. Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. It doesn’t apply here in the least.
I think you misunderstood what I said. (Also that is not the definition of spam — that’s just the tiny tip of the iceberg that consumers see.)
Let me be clearer:
*I didn’t say it was spam. I said it was — to the computer — indistinguishable from spam.
*I’m also not trying to convince you to stop duplicating reviews, I’m just trying to explain why Amazon would want you to stop.
Explanation:
The internet is full of junk. More junk than you can possibly imagine. Seriously, you may think you see a lot of junk, but search engines and algorithms have been keeping the vast majority of it away from you.
Every site on the internet has to handle this problem — not just your email or comments, but in content. The internet is flooded with duplicates of everything from legitimate press releases, wire-stories and aggregators to machine-made websites which “scrape” content off other sites. We’ve talked about people offering thousands of books on Amazon created in this automated way, for instance.
One major tool in managing this is to suppress duplications. Which means that if Amazon and B&N have duplicate content on a book’s page, odds are B&N’s page will be suppressed, while Amazon’s is displayed for every user. And that means that, by putting that review on B&N, you just made it a tiny bit harder for Nook users to find the book — the opposite effect you probably meant to have.
Of course, one of the reasons Amazon is first is because they do try to suppress duplications — they’re rewarded for that.
That said….
Yes, in some cases, the positives may far out-weigh the negatives, at least for an individual book. If a book as hundreds of reviews, one more review will have more effect on the algorithm than on the reader/book. If a book has no reviews, then even a duplicated review will a real impact on the look of the page, and that is important.
That’s why I’m not trying to tell you to stop doing it, I’m just trying to explain why Amazon would make it against the rules.
I’m sorry if I misinterpreted your words, Camille. I was responding to this: “But duplicated content is spam.”
The definition I presented was verbatim from Wikipedia–not always a completely reliable source, I admit–but I’ve been unable to find any other credible source that varies significantly.
The other points you make are certainly interesting. But they don’t conform with my experience.
Yes, I know reviewers who would be annoyed to see their reviews posted elsewhere without their permission. Some reviewers are quite protective of their reviews and also use them on their own website to monetize it. There was a bit of fracas on the reviewer’s web site yea these many years ago when Amazon reviews were found posted on other web sites with a link back to Amazon. I don’t remember if they were scraped or given permission by Amazon. It certain did upset some reviewers though.
I remember one reviewer who dropped out of the Vine program because he thought he could not repost his Vine reviews on his blog. The rights were a little less artfully stated at that point.
Also in the US fair use always applies. But fair use is not a world wide concept. Probably easier (and more flattering to the reviewer)to ask permission to use the review though.
Another point about Amazon reviews- and possibly other online reviews. One viable reasion for not being able to market our own ‘reviews’ is that many of those reviews are paid for in order to be posted. While some (I do not) think it’s fine to blindly let my marketers pay for ‘customer reviews’ to be posted and then brand and market those reviews as real- most people wouldn’t want to be taken advantage of in this way. If it’s not a real review, why even have it? But there’s no way to stop that practice, I suppose. Amazon, for instance, doesn’t know who’s posting legitimate reviews. (Yes, people are paid to open new- or use their own- accounts to post favorable reviews on books and other products they’ve never used.) This is part of the reason ‘the writer’ would want to maintain copyright on their ‘material’. (In the case of REAL REVIEWS, it is the same…that review can make money, be it for the reviewer, or anyone else. If the author wants to increase income using someone else’s written review, then that author rightly should pay for the use of the other’s creation.)