Hello. I bought the books the Sphinx of the Ice Fields by Jules Verne and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, both books on spanish on amazon. WHen I checked both books, they both seem of great quality, they are decently heavy and have good quality paper and print. However, there is no mention of an editorial or ven copyright licensing, first page and you are thrown straight into the index of the book. However, it´s weird that the book is pirated because I have a good amount of pirated books on my house, and they´re all of terrible quality, having sometimes unreadable test, the pages being poorly attached, and being books you can tell are photocopies made in an apartment with just looking a them. So, could these books be pirated, how is amazon not removing these books from their store if they have no licensing?
by Accomplished_Cry3484
2 Comments
Those books are old enough that they’ve been in the public domain for a while now, no licensing is needed.
Properly speaking print books are counterfeit, not pirated.
In this case, David Copperfield and Sphinx of the Ice Fields are in the public domain – anyone can print and sell copies of them. Since Dickens and Verne are still very popular, print-on-demand publishers reckon they can make a quick buck undercutting reputable publishers by selling copies for just a few dollars each – with absolutely no quality control. Traditional booksellers won’t stock their garbage, but Amazon doesn’t care.