Last year, he used Amazon’s self-publishing platform to issue “Adventure,” about the Atari 2600.
‘Amazon has done it again’
Some counterfeit books, like Mr. Thomas’s, are wholly made on Amazon. Sometimes they come from elsewhere.
One example is “The Art of Assembly Language,” an older computer manual published by No Starch Press. It ended up counterfeited and on Amazon after a sequence of maneuvers that began last November.
That month, a counterfeiter sent 11 digital files — including “The Art of Assembly Language” — to IngramSpark, a print-on-demand publisher in Tennessee. Once the scammer was finished with the minimal paperwork, IngramSpark had 11 new books.
The titles became part of the distribution network of IngramSpark’s parent company, Ingram Content Group, which supplies thousands of retailers with physical books of all types. IngramSpark printed and sold 56 copies of “The Art of the Assembly Language” over the next three months. Amazon ordered many of them.
In January, a keen-eyed customer tipped off No Starch that the book did not look right. The counterfeits, listed for $48, were larger than the real thing, which put the cover noticeably out of alignment. Amazon featured the fakes in its product photo.
“Amazon has done it again,” Mr. Pollock tweeted.
In late 2016, No Starch had found a counterfeit of one of its books, “The Linux Command Line,” on Amazon. A few months later, it happened again with “Python for Kids: A Playful Introduction to Programming” and, the publisher said, at least three others.
Phil Ollila, chief content officer of Ingram Content Group, acknowledged that he had not told No Starch, the copyright owner, that its rights were violated. “That seems like the polite thing to do, doesn’t it?” he said.