Amazon caught selling counterfeits of publisher’s computer books—again

Enlarge / At left, a counterfeited No Starch book. At right, the real deal. (credit: left, Bill Pollock; right, Jon Sawyer (@jcase))
Bill Pollock, the founder of the tech how-to book publisher No Starch Press, called out Amazon on February 13 for selling what he says are counterfeit copies of his company's book, The Art of Assembly Language—copies that Amazon apparently printed.

Just discovered today a new case of copyright infringement directly by AMAZON'S CREATESPACE. Not the first time! This is obviously NOT printed by No Starch. Kindly report any other cases to us. Please RT and share. @amazon @nostarch pic.twitter.com/ayjebwTiOI
— Bill Pollock (@billpollock) February 2, 2019

One of the Amazon printed fakes. Note the poor spine wrapping. @nostarch pic.twitter.com/3pcm0BYVHN
— Bill Pollock (@billpollock) February 12, 2019

Even the photo for the book's main listing on the Amazon marketplace is of a fake, showing a misaligned spine image.

After Pollock's post on Twitter on Wednesday, other people posted pictures of other No Starch books that had been counterfeited through Amazon, including books that had pages poorly cut. What's even crazier is that this isn't the first time this has happened.
In 2017, Pollock got reports of Amazon selling counterfeit copies of Python for Kids, a popular children's introduction to programming, and four other No Starch titles. The books were easy to distinguish from No Starch's production runs because of the poorer quality of the paper and binding, changes likely resulting from Amazon's print-on-demand production.
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