(image courtesy of Candy Direct)

This week I’ve seen two different articles covering similar scammy behavior; the repackaging of written works as though they were written/created by someone else.

First, Engadget reported on “apps” in the App Store that are just wrappers for RSS feeds. Technically, the information is freely available online, and the apps aren’t pretending they wrote anything themselves. The issue is more that these companies are charging for stuff like the New York Times, implying that the Grey Lady is both endorsing and profiting from you buying it…neither of which are true.

More egregious is the story Teleread shared today. The CEO of Smashwords laid out a scam that he’s been seeing pop up lately:

Did you know for only $24.95 a month, you can subscribe to a service that gives you access to a database of thousands of articles you can turn into e-books?

If you’re too lazy or too clueless to write a real book, now you slap your name on another person’s work and get rich in the process. Or, so parasitic “Private Label Article” services are leading an ever-growing number of fools to believe.

Yea, it’s exactly as scummy as it sounds. You think you’re buying a book that’s written on a subject you like, but it’s actually articles stitched together and presented as a cohesive book. And because ebooks only let you sample, rather than read the whole novel, you won’t know you’ve been “had” until you already purchased the book. Amazon’s self-submission publication arm has been hit with these, and Smashwords specifically sets their terms of service to block any book from such services.

Remember when Amazon kicked off a firestorm removing “1984″ from Kindles after purchase? Their self-service publishing option was to blame then too. In fact, there’s quite a few books in the Kindle store that are technically public domain, but have been added for a few dollars to Amazon by people trying to make a quick buck. Just check out what a search for “Jules Verne” offers in the Kindle Store. You can find his works for free, both on Amazon and on Project Gutenberg, or you can be a sucker and pay somewhere between $1.00-$5.00 for them.

The lesson here is really just use your head. Like anyplace where money can be made, there’s a gold rush going on, and that means shady people are taking advantage. If it’s a classic, and you’ve seen it on Project Gutenberg, it’s probably not something you should pay any amount for. If it’s a publication that ONLY appears in ebook form, or it appears to be “off” in some way, don’t pay for it until you’re sure it is legit.

Via Engadget (RSS as Apps article)
Via Teleread (Smashwords article)