Op-Ed: Online book-selling scams steal a living from writers - Los Angeles Times

While there are many reasons for this, one factor is the surge in book-selling scams: counterfeiting, author "doppelganging," title cloning, ebook piracy, cut-and-paste plagiarism and other rip-offs - many of which take place on digital platforms like Amazon, Ebay and Google. The variety and cleverness of these cons is breathtaking. Basic counterfeiting can be straightforward: The physical book is reproduced in its entirety, printed and sold to unsuspecting customers. In the case of pirated ebooks, the electronic file is simply stripped of digital copy protection and uploaded to a piracy website.