Comments on The Book Vixen: Do You Own Your Reviews?

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attenti...

2011-03-23T07:48:19.088-07:00

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! I've never much liked Amazon's business practices anyway, so this is just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I have a question -- what Google Alert do you use to track who's using your reviews? A line from the review? Or just "The Book Vixen"?

Because of my marketing background, I think what A...

2011-02-17T10:22:29.873-08:00

Because of my marketing background, I think what Amazon is doing is pretty much the norm (even with all the undesirable outcomes that might entail). You do have a right to copyright anything you put on your personal blog (because you own all the rights there).

As an author - when a blogger writes a review about me - I provide a direct link to the posting (as I have linked to those who write reviews on Good Reads). It's just common decency to give credit to the author of any blog, comment or review. Hopefully they had the decency to keep all attributions for who wrote or contributed to the review intact.

WOW!!! This is terrible..I'm really sorry this...

2010-07-10T16:04:30.895-07:00

WOW!!! This is terrible..I'm really sorry this happen to you...

ojh hell.. I am very late in reading this. what a ...

2010-07-08T16:04:45.229-07:00

ojh hell.. I am very late in reading this. what a bunch of d-bags. This is really sad. We work hard for our reviews just to find out that Amazon (shame on them!) allows plagiarism.
Grrrr...

I used Google Alert and I found that quite a few o...

2010-06-22T12:13:51.091-07:00

I used Google Alert and I found that quite a few of my reviews (5-6) were used by this kind of website. My Spirit Bound review was used by like 5 of them and I wrote to one of those websites (they posted my review of Faery Rebel) and the onwer nicely asnwered me.
Those website don't "steal" our reviews, they are posted by default by amazon themselves.
The affiliate I talked to explained me that they don't have any say in which review amazon add to their content.

Now what can we do?
Well you can delete all your review like they said, or write partial reviews.
I haven't set my mind on what I'm gonna do yet, but for now I changed my amazon account name to Tynga's Reviews, so everywhere my reviews appears, they are credited to Tynga's Reviews.
Even thought there is no link to my blog, readers could still google my name and find my blog.

Wow,thanks for bringing this to my attention. I th...

2010-06-08T21:23:34.884-07:00

Wow,thanks for bringing this to my attention. I think I like the idea of a few sentences and then refer to out blog. I definitely won't be putting on any more full reviews. Sorry this happened to you!

Hi, sorry I'm late jumping back into this lol ...

2010-06-06T07:51:08.996-07:00

Hi, sorry I'm late jumping back into this lol but it's worth noting that even if you post something in a public place, you still own the copyright -(even if it's not marked as copyrighted but we're getting into all sorts of legal grey areas)- the only time someone else may copy or distribute your work is when you tick a bo to agree they can.

If you are only posting on you own blog, add a small copyright notice to the bottom.

If you are posting on seller, review sites, the TOS's can be a nightmare, so sign up but before posting drop their customer services a short email asking if by posting on their site it means they get 'shared copyright' and if they allow third parties or affiliates to copy, export or auto feed content from there site.

When you get a nice plain english, save the email, and if you are happy with terms post away. If there are any issues in the future, forward them a copy of the email you received entitled, 'as previously agreed by authories representative of your company'

sorry to ramble but I hope that helps lol

Lily

Tarra - You're right, this is only hurting the...

2010-05-31T21:15:24.444-07:00

Tarra - You're right, this is only hurting the authors and it's not what I want to do. I think I will take your advise and include a couple of sentences in my Amazon reviews :)

Thanks for posting. That is a damn shame! Really d...

2010-05-31T12:32:45.669-07:00

Thanks for posting. That is a damn shame! Really disappointing. How dare that other site steal your work. Shame Amazon's terms are as they are. I won't be posting any reviews now!

This is a loss for authors as well. Is there a cha...

2010-05-31T11:58:52.823-07:00

This is a loss for authors as well. Is there a chance you would consider adding one or two lines from your review to accompany the star rating on amazon? You can add at the end that the full review is on your website.

wow glad I never put up reviews for Amazon I alway...

2010-05-30T08:13:48.370-07:00

wow glad I never put up reviews for Amazon I always wondered if people could "steal" content from hard workers, well I guess I have my answer I am so sorry this is happening to you. Glad you were able to delete your reviews and that they didn't lock you out so to speak.

Jackie - Actually, I just recently signed up for t...

2010-05-29T08:55:06.238-07:00

Jackie - Actually, I just recently signed up for the Book Depo affiliate program, about 2 weeks ago. I haven't seen any revenue from it yet LOL But we'll see what happens.

That is so weird! Thanks for posting this.

2010-05-28T16:21:07.205-07:00

That is *so* weird! Thanks for posting this.

Thats Fucked up!! Im glad I dont post my reviews t...

2010-05-28T15:58:02.375-07:00

Thats Fucked up!! Im glad I dont post my reviews there!

so sorry you're going through that hon!

Have you looked into the Book Depository's aff...

2010-05-28T06:50:40.444-07:00

Have you looked into the Book Depository's affiliate program yet? I just started using it this month, so I'm not entirely sure about it, but it's free shipping world wide, so I'm thinking it'll be a little nicer.

I just want to put this out there. The only person...

2010-05-28T06:07:55.461-07:00

I just want to put this out there. The only person we're hurting by NOT posting reviews on Amazon (or any other offending site) is the author. I know that's not what we don't want to do. Like some have suggested (and this is what I'm going to start doing), rate the book using the site's star rating system and perhaps type in a few short sentences, referring back to your blog/site for an in-depth review.

I want Amazon to suffer. Yes, I know it's not entirely their fault but they condone it! It's a lot easier for me to dissuade people from buying from Amazon than it would be for me to shut down these 3rd party sites. So I will begin to remove ALL Amazon links from my blog. I'm certainly not going to send business their way when this is how they treat us.

Melissa - CO as in Colorado? Are you talking about...

2010-05-28T06:03:29.133-07:00

Melissa - CO as in Colorado? Are you talking about earning money through the affiliate program? If so, why would they not pay you because you're in CO?!!

Penelope - I don't feel like they actually attributed the review to me. Yes, the did type in the comment as "The Book Vixen" but the hyperlink associated with TBV goes to the book on Amazon. Not to my website and not to my actual review on Amazon. So are they really giving me the credit I deserve? I say no.

Jackie - I'm going to do what you do. You're one smart cookie!!

The Queen B - That's what I'm going to start doing. I think I'll do that for all the sites I post reviews on. It's a real shame that we have to limit ourselves like this O_o

GoodReads does share, BUT there is a check box in ...

2010-05-28T06:01:48.068-07:00

GoodReads does share, BUT there is a check box in your account settings to opt out of it. Unfortunately it is opt out rather than opt in, but at least they are giving us options. I'm glad I've never reviewed on Amazon.

this is just nuts, thanks for letting us all know!...

2010-05-28T05:35:16.942-07:00

this is just nuts, thanks for letting us all know! I can't beleive how nonchalont the Amazon guys were - obviously not bloggers that know all the hard work that goes into writing them :(

Ugh. That's awful. But I guess we can look on ...

2010-05-27T20:15:03.029-07:00

Ugh. That's awful. But I guess we can look on the bright side. Now the rest of us know, and I bet quite a few aren't going to be posting their reviews on Amazon any longer, which is going to hurt them, not us. Sorry you got jipped girl!

Wow. Thanks for letting us know, and for doing th...

2010-05-27T18:33:06.215-07:00

Wow. Thanks for letting us know, and for doing the legwork by contacting everyone and sharing the info with us.

I do what I believe Parajunkee suggested which is,...

2010-05-27T16:49:16.474-07:00

I do what I believe Parajunkee suggested which is, I give my star review and then a very brief review.
I do this for a couple reasons:
1) I don't really think it makes sense to post an entire in-depth review on a seller site. Most customers are just looking for a brief explanation of it was good or not and honestly, I save my in depth discussion posts for my own site.
2) For just such a reason as this. If it is taken and used, it's not as gut wrenching as it would be if it was the type of reviews I post on my blog.

Just a thought.

I will admit, I don't post a lot of reviews on...

2010-05-27T14:15:25.705-07:00

I will admit, I don't post a lot of reviews on Amazon. However, when I do, I don't post my full review. I'll give a small snippet (one or two conclusion sentences) and then tell them to go to LE for the rest. I know Amazon says we canNOT link to outside sources, but they haven't stopped me from telling people where to go. So even if one of my Amazon reviews does get swiped, they aren't getting much.

So while this practice sucks, there are ways to take advantage of it. If they are simply pulling the reviews via an RSS feeds, change all of your reviews to small snippets with the last sentence telling them to read the full review at the Book Vixen. If they are going to take advantage of your reviews, why not take advantage of their audience. *grin*

This is not actually plagiarism because they did a...

2010-05-27T12:47:14.543-07:00

This is not actually plagiarism because they did attribute the review to you. If they had copied your review verbatim without identifying you as the author (or attributing it to someone else), then it's plagiarism.
I think it's funny that when you click on the link for your name, it redirects you to the amazon purchase site! That takes a lot of chutzpah!

I cant believe that happen to you. Its disrespectf...

2010-05-27T12:37:24.405-07:00

I cant believe that happen to you. Its disrespectful. I believe its a good decision to no longer post your reviews at amazon.

I wonder if that could happen with other websites as goodreads?

Its definitely something any blogger you know, and be careful about it.