On Falsehoods

According to ZDNet, 90% of the so-called "Apple" products being sold on Amazon may be counterfeit products.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-avoid-buying-counterfeit-apple-cables-and-chargers/?ftag=TRE17cfd61&bhid=24357684409836269984444908372715

Buyer beware!

I cannot conceive of anyone launching a lawsuit against someone who gives them something for nothing, but nevertheless, the law firm of Manett Phelps & Phillips LLC has a blog well worth reading for authors contemplating making an ebook "permafree".

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=51b4ebf2-0160-4c8a-a898-950e75664ba2&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2016-10-13&utm_term=

The Manett Phelps & Phillips LLC blog is more obviously relevant to advertisements of the "Buy One Get A Second One Free" variety, especially where the advertisements do not tell the customer the original cost of one item (without the additional free one).

The bottom line: the regular price cannot be fictitious. A book should at some point have been --or be-- sold for something before the discount (to $ 0 ) is applied. For a book that has never been sold for a non-discounted price one should disclose something of the sort for example, "List price savings may not be based on actual sales".

The reason that consumer protection agencies may be increasingly interested in "sales" that last for 52 weeks or longer is because of the element of deception, the illusion of a bargain, the false sense of urgency created in the mind of the buyer.

For anyone interested in the pros and cons of "permafree" and how to fake out the system, the obvious place to check out is:

https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=219072&tstart=0&messageID=1053465#1053465

Above is the last page of the Amazon KDP Support forum thread.

https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=219072

And that is the first page.

For an older blog by Brian Cohen about permafree,
http://www.30daybooks.com/going-perma-free-my-reflections-after-100000-downloads-of-my-ebook/


Now for something completely different: beware of reTweeting or "sharing" other people's images.  A copyright owner might give a social media site permission to use an image, or perhaps they never did so. Just because it is possible to "share" something does not mean that it is legal to do so.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2284dee5-438d-43d5-b81e-1b207050ecc8&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2016-10-24&utm_term=

Of course, the chance of getting into trouble is probably directly proportional to other people's perception of how deep your pockets might be.... but don't bank on it!

All the best,
Rowena Cherry