Officially, pirated ebooks (and other content) is not a problem unless the copyright owner or an authorized agent thereof complains. Copyright law is civil, not criminal; that means that if the party-who-has-rights doesn't make noise, there's presumed to be no harm.
And while they could put stricter checks on things before they go live, they've decided to play the "safe harbor" game, in which they more-or-less claim that checking every book before selling, like a social networking site checking every post, would be impossible without destroying their business, so they only have to react to complaints. I think they're in a different category from social sites because they're profiting from every bootleg book they don't catch--but it'll take a big pack of lawyers to make that go anywhere in court.
If it helps, AFAIK you're not breaking any laws when you buy a bootleg book; it's like walking into a bookstore, making a purchase, and discovering that the publisher didn't have distribution rights in your region--the copyright holder can go after the publisher; they don't get to reclaim the book you bought.
no subject
And while they could put stricter checks on things before they go live, they've decided to play the "safe harbor" game, in which they more-or-less claim that checking every book before selling, like a social networking site checking every post, would be impossible without destroying their business, so they only have to react to complaints. I think they're in a different category from social sites because they're profiting from every bootleg book they don't catch--but it'll take a big pack of lawyers to make that go anywhere in court.
If it helps, AFAIK you're not breaking any laws when you buy a bootleg book; it's like walking into a bookstore, making a purchase, and discovering that the publisher didn't have distribution rights in your region--the copyright holder can go after the publisher; they don't get to reclaim the book you bought.