Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
Amazon stole my money and my intellectual property...
I self published several of my books that I authored and hold exclusive rights to, via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing - kdp.amazon.com/ - to make my books available in the Amazon Kindle Store for purchase. Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon would pay me 70% royalties for all sales made of my books uploaded to KDP. My books sold very well and one was in the top 1000 best sellers for a while and maintained in the top 2000.
After 3-4 months of good sales of great quality books I'd written that received nothing but great reviews, recently out of nowhere and with no prior warning I receive an email from Amazon telling me that I had breached the agreement and they would be terminating the agreement with me immediately and they would be removing all titles of mine from the Kindle Store - and they would not be paying me any of the royalties they owed me as, they claim I breached the agreement so it is no longer valid and they therefore don't have to pay me. None of my content is in breach of their content guidelines, that I can guarantee.
Several emails and phone calls back and forth to various departments and executives go pretty much nowhere, and they refuse to tell me how or why I have breached the agreement or enter into any reasonable communication on the matter. I inform them I will not accept this and sue them if necessary, they tell me one final time they will not be paying me any the royalties they owe me and they will not respond to any more communications.
The royalties so far total over $20,000 that they are not paying me. I check the Kindle Store and what annoys me even more is while they have blocked my account and told me they are removing my titles from the store and not going to pay me anything they owe in royalties, I find that all my titles are still on sale and selling well - one has even made it back into the top 1000 sales rank. They kept these titles still selling which they had no intention of paying me for or recording the sales to my account for at least another 3 weeks until I find they have long after finally been removed like they said.
I filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and IC3. Amazon never responded to the BBB complaint so I heard nothing back after a month and I never heard back from IC3 at all.
This seems totally outrageous that they can get away with this kind of behavior. I feel like they have stolen my money, and leeched my titles for their own profits for as long as possible with no intention of paying the rights owner (me).
Please someone help me with what to do. The very least I want is to get the $20,000 royalties they owe. I don't know the first thing about law, lawsuits or what to do after BBB doesn't work. Please help.
Thank you
8 Answers from Attorneys
You seem like a have a righteous case. Feel free to call me. 323-782-0099.
Did they indicate why they felt it violated their terms, or why, even if violative that do not have to pay royalties. You may have to hire an attorney and file a lawsuit.
1. Register your work with the US Copyright Office; 2. Consult a lawyer about suing them.
If you can prove what you say, it sounds like a valid case. If serious about pursuing it, feel free to contact me to discuss your evidence and damage.
Even if you were in breach of the contract that normally would only allow Amazon to sue you for their damages and not retain the royality payments. It does not make sense why Amazon would behave in this fashion. You probably need to speak to an attorney, have a demand letter prepared, copy right your material so they do not use it in the future [the protection from a copy right is not retroactive, the attorney closely review the contract, and perhaps even have someone go to the Amazon headquarters and insist on seeing someone to find out why they allega a breach and are keeping the money. You may very well have to file a suit, but if the facts are as you have said then the suit should not be too costly and should be relatively easy to win.
If you want to further discuss thematter, you can call me at 510-441-2684
Written material is copyrighted nowadays when it is in a tangible form and qualifies for copyright protection. In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office.
I would be careful about contacting any attorneys who are unfamiliar with modern copyright law.
Are you sure the email you received was really from Amazon? As others have noted, what you describe is not a sensible way for Amazon to behave. This sounds like it may be a scam by a third party.
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