I personally can't wait to read "The Minecraft scam NO ONE is talking about!: Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels"
getting a book like this and then finding out its about other books similar to one you bought,saying its a scam, you would be VERY disappointed. just imagine it.
You could band together a bunch of these RUclipsrs and sue them if you wanted to, its so blatant you couldn't lose (and it would be free publicity but for legal reasons you never saw that).
Issue is it is almost impossible to track the author(s) down, since they use a false alias and all the adresses link to Amazon and their kindle publishing program.
2:22 He used a font called "Arcade Classic" which has that exact spacement issues (T's and C's are the main causes of these errors). The big problem behind this font is that it is not free for commercial use!
This seems so much more nefarious and disturbing than it should be. The thought of an AI copying video titles, screenshots, the video's entire dialogue, formatting it, publishing and printing dozens of almost-cohesive books with generated author names with zero human interaction is unsettling.
Just makesme realize how desperately I need to get into e-commerce. Obviously some idiots out there were buying enough of these books for the culprit to continue taking the risk. I just gotta provide like eco friendly q-tips or some garbage that enough people want to buy online to make me money lmao 😅
Man, the whole roast of the cover is already so great. You can just feel the calm anger being held back. It's great. Justafied, definitely, but also funny to watch.
Tears rolled out as she leaned closer. she opened her lips, and she said something I would never forget. ever. "the villagers are much more aggressive towards the villager"
3:33 "i am no graphic designer" i study grahic design and you are right about absolutely everything, but what hurts even more, I've seen actual billboards looking like this 😭
I'm not 100% sure, but doesn't Amazon have a guaranteed return policy, or does it depend on the seller? Just bringing this up because you might be able to get your $10 back and return that abomination.
As someone who really adores Grian, and looks up to him a lot, this _infuriates_ me. The whole thing infuriates me, people shouldn’t be able to get away with this.
Amazon can. I figure if he gets an attorney, the attorney can force Amazon to allow him to file the suit against the perp. Or, he can contact Amazon's asset' s protection branch, prove his identity somehow after disclosing his situation, and A.P. can forward the info to his attorney. Tomato, tomado.
“Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels” will now permanently be ingrained into my memory. Thank you, jefferey miner covington
For the love of god, please sue them. You could learn so much in discovery! And you can recover for their wrong doing. This is as clear cut as it really gets.
YES! FINALLY!!! My dad got me and my brother kindle unlimited and the only ebooks on that subscription are these stupid graphic novels that are actually RUclips videos! It makes me so angry to see someone’s hard work being stolen by some randos which are actually making money off of it! Finally, someone has realized this. Hopefully, something will be done about it and me and my brother could actually read something good and original once again.
Oh, yuck. Are you saying that you've seen "books" like this scraped from other genres of RUclips videos as well? It seemed likely that there could be, and RetroGaming was only seeing Minecraft ones because the breadcrumbs left by the initial book were Minecraf (perfect for kids and adults) specific...
@@bsidethebox Yes they did other Minecraft RUclipsrs, Roblox, and some Gacha videos. It's so annoying because I want to just read a Minecraft comic and I get these sussy "books" instead.
I recommend you try the legend of Dave the villager and diary of a surfer villager if you are a good reader, cringey named I know but the content is not bad at all
Hmmm..... Sounds to me like there is a market for original Minecraft story books. What constitutes an "amazing" Minecraft story which isn't simply any other story, but set in Minecraft? What is it that makes it a good MINECRAFT story?
Dude, this is nuts. I went on Amazon and reported the copyright issues with all of these "miner" authors. Who knows if anything comes out of all of this, but great job bringing this to light.
I love how the initial reaction isn’t “I’m so angry that these people are copyrighting my videos!!!” but instead it’s “Your cover art is a piece of trash
Sounds like the NFT scammers have finally learned about fungible items and want to expand their scams into the real world where things actually have some kind of value…too bad these books are only worth the paper and ink they’re printed on.
2:07 That is also technically illegal according to Minecraft's copyright rules... Using the Minecraft logo. You also can't use the word "Minecraft" as the first or biggest word on your book cover. They could probably sue this person and easily win. Surprised this person was even able to get away with just the cover!!! As a Minecraft writer myself, I made sure to research the company's copyright laws so I wouldn't accidentally break any rules. That's how I know this.
@@bradthunderpants3283 this is far too nuanced for someone who calls themself lib smasher sixty nine but the answer is it depends on whether the video is derivative or transformative which would be determined by a court. commentary and let's plays in general are transformative, so yes the video creator would gain copyright of that video, not the video game creator, however it would depend on the video people make millions off of let's plays without paying licensing fees to video game copyright holders because the video is considered its own work with its own copyright
@@bradthunderpants3283 well yeah? even if the youtubers didn't have copyright of their videos because it's of someone else's game, all the same copyright infringement against the video would still apply, just infringing on Minecraft/Mojang/Microsoft's copyright instead of some random youtuber that probably doesn't have the money to bother fighting it in court.
@@bradthunderpants3283 That’s exactly how it works, each video is edited and overlayed with various individual edits and commentary. The content may be originating from Minecraft, but the creator is doing commentary and adding value. You sound like you’re not very knowledgeable on this subject, consider doing research
- 4:40 I don't think they used a speech-recognition program, I think whatever program they used to rip and generate the book just downloaded the auto-captions from YT. - To be honest, I'm often surprised and impressed by the creativity of scammers. I mean, who the heck thought of this? 🤨 What scams will they think of next? 🤔
Imagine the people behind these books make a book out of this video. 🤣 Anyways, it is really worrying that people are getting scammed with this kind of bs.
This is clearly selling to parents and grandparents desperate to make children happy but not understanding or caring about the content. The number of gifts I got as a kid which were clearly the first item the person found that matched an item on my wishlist by having just one word in common... But hey, at least I got gifts so I can't complain for myself. I just feel bad that the adults are getting scammed and are missing out on making their children actually happy.
Thats exactly what is happening. I know when i was in first grade my favorite color was "pink" and this resulted in a few too many gifts that were blatantly from the girls section, so i started saying "red". Far too many people think giving a child any random hunk of plastic of a certain dollar value counts as an adequate gift. I know my parents had fights with my extended family over the obsession some of them had with gift giving when they are unqualified to get a decent gift. And i think that describes the target of the scam "unqualified gift givers" because even a child would be put off by Grian's "S7E2 as a book" when they already watched the episode and the text is so inaccurate, and the Author not being "Grian" should be a dead giveaway. Edit: spelling/grammar
@@jasonreed7522 As a Hermitcraft fan myself, I would be furious if I got a crappy ripoff Hermitcraft book that doesn’t even have proper grammar or any consent from the actual hermits at all. I feel so bad for anyone that could have gotten one of those books from someone who looked at it and said “oh it’s Minecraft related I’ll just get it for them”
@@catphin8495 Especially since the Hermits have all collectively agreed that they won't do any Hermitcraft branding. Mumbo for Mayor shirts? Sure. Barge shirts? That's a Grian Original! But a Hermitcraft such-and-such, and hey it's got bells? No. If an actual Hermit did that they'd be removed from the server, if I'm not misremembering Xisuma's video on the topic.
wow, can't believe how many famous youtubers these people/person were copyrighting and getting away with it, especially as any amount of traction and publicity would immediately alert some of the people within the minecraft community, including yourself! and now they hopefully get to pay the price, pretty risky game for them to play, but cool that you found them!
as a graphic designer that cover brings me immense pain. i could design something better in 5 minutes. heck practically anyone could design something better in an hour
12:04 no it is also Automated. There is an API that skips the intro and the outro and any sponsered content in the video. Even the subscribe reminders. All the work here is automated. (sorry for my bad Englisch)
I understand how they can make your videos into the books, but I am really confused why they make Grian videos into books because they are nothing near to a documentary. Just a lets play.
I mean, I could understand if they made his POV of 3rd Life/Last Life into a book (though fanfic sites like AO3 and Wattpad already got that covered), but most of the videos that got turned into books are, as you call them, just normal letsplays.
@@tatianah.a9307 it would be pretty funny if they just stole a fanfic lol -cuz I bet the probable chaos generated from the incident would be quite fun to watch xD-
I actually think transforming you minecraft theories in a book of some kind would be a pretty good idea. If done well it could turn out to be a really interesting read
This is actually something that happened with a bunch of Wattpad fanfics a while back, hell it still happens sometimes. It got to the point where sometimes people will add in a page that talked about it and said that it was an illegal scam since it was an automated thing.
I tried leaving a "review" saying they stole your work as per this video, however I am apparently not eligible to leave a review on Amazon since I haven't bought anything ever on their website... Sorry man I tried my best
Additional note, I'm from South Africa anddd... We don't use Amazon. Maybe some importers here and there but rarely anyone has ever used Amazon, most have never even visited their site
@@jacobpugpoirier3350 Guess what, dillweed?! I was already planning on submitting that review before reading that comment, stop acting like you're the comment police, because people hate backseat moderation worse than white knighting, or as you so crudely put it "portraying myself as a stan."
As an aspiring writer, this has made me realize something. Finalizing a book is easy as fuck. If these scammers can do it with bare to minimal effort at all, I can totally do it. Secondly, this scam, as a aspiring writer, is egregious. They've taken someone else's work, that they've probably spent hours on in some cases, and maybe days in others, and sold it as their own product. What's worse is, they haven't even taken the time and effort to use proper conjugation. I may not be a good writer, but damn if I can do better than this, I've done well. X'D
Yeah, sometimes things like this make you realize that all of that self-doubt you had about something was just Imposter Syndrome. Keep going at it, with more time and practice you'll get more experience and your writing will improve. Just don't be afraid and don't worry if you didn't write a Shakespeare, nobody else except Shakespare has done it and besides, even the greats have to start somewhere don't they? Anyways, I don't know much about writing, but I hope that you get to do what you want and achieve success!
I know it's really bad copyright infringement, however this is actually a super interesting exercise in using a program to transform one format of media into another. I might attempt to make something similar, though with improved design layout. (I wouldn't use it for stealing, of course. Just for personal fun)
Best way to combat this: Put out your own official version. I know it might seem bizarre, but there is a gap in the book market for this kind of content. Parents are looking for any minecraft related books to try to get their kids to read and there are so many adults and kids who have an easier time with reading instead of watching and listening to a video.
This is an interesting idea. I've thought about how it would be cool to have a coffee table book with some diagrams from my theories. I think it could work really well.
@@RetroGamingNow I mean, I'll gladly be your first customer. I'd love to get some to donate to our local library so that your tales can reach a whole new audience of Minecraft fans. Some with certian types of sensory processing disorders can experience pain from just listening to talking and watching camera movement, but they still love Minecraft and they want a way to participate in the hobby. This is an excellent way to make your content more accessible. Besides the obvious upsides, you'd also have a clearer way in copyright striking those shops. Any lost revenue recoup from those shops can be donated to charity, since their money might as well be stolen. Now I think about it, this could likely help people looking for refunds as well. 🤔 Did I do good here? I feel like I did. 😁
@RetroGamingNow bruh I'm a professional hacker, and I'm friends with like 20 other professional hackers. I can track this guy down to his Ip address and tell you it.
I feel bad about the scam but I love how he says perfect for minecrafters kids and adults,top builder ideas,guide book,graphic novels so well it seems so real its so funny
4:12 i think the text of the book was completely ripped from the transcript of youtube's auto generated subtitles and the creator of the book was too lazy to proofread.
This is news above and beyond the MC-YT community, if one considers what other content they may be stealing (i.e., beyond a couple dozen Minecraft videos), and potential liability (?) Amazon may be exposed to as the publisher for repeatedly failing to perform due diligence (it wasn't a one-off). Probably more to the story here...
I wonder about this. I have a suspicion that these Minecraft scams are just an example of a much deeper and more elaborate publishing scheme. I'm keeping my eyes open.
The problem isn't really Amazon. They're just a medium of exchange. Trying to claim they are liable for anything is stupid because. Well, they're just a store. Unless the store does something wrong like tampering with a product, you can't hold them liable. It's like saying that, a mouse you find in a load of bread, that no one would notice if they didn't open and check the bread, is the stores fault. It's not, it's the producer of a product who has to ensure that product is good, and didn't. The people who should be held responsible and the only people reasonably able to held responsible, then, are simply the people making this.
@@linhero797 I'd agree if it was an item someone published themselves and listed on the marketplace. In this case Amazon physically printed the book and registered the ISBN on behalf of the "author". They're both the publisher and the store.
@@linhero797 your mouse in a load of bread analogy is nowhere near being comparable to this and I'm sure that you yourself realize this. A better analogy is if a toy store actively listed a minecraft toy that wasn't made by Mojang. This doesn't have anything to do with the general quality of the product, this is a matter of blatant copyright infringement. That is something that Amazon is definitely responsible for vetting and it's literally against their very own terms of service. That, along with what the other person said, yes man, Amazon is indeed part of the problem here.
@@ermwhatdaheck My Analogy doesn't make sense cause. You missed the point. The point is. A store, is a third party, unrelated to the product assuming they are not related to the creation of the product. (Something I was unaware about Amazon originally) Because of this. They don't have to do the kind of things someone like a Publishing Company has to, such as ensuring no copyright infringing materials and such aren't in their products. They COULD. But they don't HAVE TO. They operate on a different set of rules because they are different kind of business. But nevertheless. I do admit I was wrong because I was unaware that Amazon was the printer, and effectively publisher, of these books.
it looks like somebody made a automatic software which screenshots a video like every 20 seconds and writes a "book" on it by using voice to text. Then the thief just corrects a few mistakes, creates a bad thumbnail and uploads it to amazon
The McDonald’s Minecraft copy is literally the first RUclips result when you search up “how to build a McDonald’s restaurant in Minecraft” by a RUclipsr I used to watch quite a lot a few years ago
Always always always make videos on scams! The #1 scam prevention strategy is simply educating others on scams. Thanks for bringing this to the public attention
I've seen these awful scam books go around on Amazon for years now. This isn't just a recent thing. I'm honestly surprised people get scammed by this too.
This. Is. Insane. First of all, I wanted to to say thank you so much for crafting this video and bringing this awful situation to light. This is well made and you clearly put a lot of effort into tracking down the ISBNS and all the books and authors and websites and creators and such. This is especially sad to me because I can remember when I watched all these RUclipsrs and their videos and I think a younger version of myself might have actually been inclined to buy these. You're right, it's honestly just disappointing rather than triggering as to why someone would do this. I have to hope that the other RUclipsrs who were scammed and the scammer(s) themself discover this video. Also, I'm sorry that your hard work was stolen. That's not fair to you, whoever bought that book, and your viewers. Again, thank you for making this video. I would say you did the right thing.
I feel sooo bad for you guys, but especially the smaller creators who don’t have as much of a big appearance, so if we can, we should band together and try to notify all of these creators who had their content stolen notified about what is going on
I have a small theory that explains the weird grammar and spelling issues in the book. RUclips has a feature called "transscripts" which generates text based off what the video is saying, coverting it into text with a automated bot of some kind could potentially copy paste and slap onto a PDF file to convert into a book. That can explain the whole illager-villager or absence of punctuation, there's a chance that these books are just produced with little human involvement, only churned for profit. Either that whoever makes these books are very lazy. Oh wait you literally just mentioned that right after I unpaused the video to write this comment. I hope you know that you can potentially sue the person or people making these books. This is really slimey activity.
Hmmm extortion you say? Sounds kind of illegal... In all seriousness though the guys who make this auto generated crap would be very hard to sue and win. First, you don't know how they are because they are using fake names. Second, and probably the biggest reason, they most likely live in a country that doesn't acknowledge US or European copyright laws. If both those cases turn out to be untrue sue the hell out of them but you need substantial damages I'd imagine to get a subpoena for their info from Amazon.
I really feel bad about this in a weird way because I remember joking about this with some pals on a VC one night. Take some VG lore videos, run them through a speech to text thing, robbing some screenshots and slapping it together into a book to sell for cheap on Amazon. Admittedly it wasn't Minecraft but the similarities are uncomfortable.
Honestly if these were done well it would be a good opportunity to get kids to read more. A series like hermitcraft or other let's plays could make some good stories. The old Yogscast stuff could be turned into short stories. Of course with proper permissions from creators giving them royalties.
I personally can't wait to read "The Minecraft scam NO ONE is talking about!: Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels" a comment perfect for minecrafters kids and adults top builder ideas, guide book, graphic novels
Disgusting people. I've watched a lot of these videos myself, and they're great, but I don't see how this 'Miner' person thinks they can get away with copying audio from a literal minecraft video and put it into a book. This is really the most stupid thing I've seen so far this year lol, hope you raise awareness and get these people sued.
I have a feeling that those books are from that woman with the ads about her "Amazon wealth creation technics". In the ads, she said that it was about her selling short stories. And "the best thing" (as she said in the ads) is that she didn't have to write any of them. Her ads were not about selling the books but about her "wealth creation technic". She would teach buyers of her "course" how to do it. Her ads ran most of last year. She had a kiwi accent and I thought that she was from New Zealand because of it. She was middle-aged and had tussled-style mousey-blonde hair.
For the last week or so I've been seeing an ad on RUclips which starts with a woman claiming to have sold thousands of books on Amazon without having written anything. I don't know anything else because the skip button becomes available at this point, which I hit while (semi-sarcastically) thinking "plagiarist". I'm now wondering if I wasn't more correct than I had thought.
Returning to the original Question of the Witch though: I think this should tell us once AGAIN that MC is a broken world needing Fixing, whetever Retro's Theory is right or wrong. I hope one day we can do actual, permanent Change to the MC-World.
I reported them. You may not be mad, but I am upset on your behalf. It's your hard time and effort they completely took from you. I love your content and it's frustrating that someone literally stole it to profit.
Zoe Bee did a video on this. The companies who make these crappy minecraft books hire gig workers to do the unautomatable work of removing intros and outros
Here's what I did with the book...
ruclips.net/user/shortsszjYKvP0ras
I knew there was a reason why RUclips is recommending this to me now
This is great to happy to see this
That's good.
I personally can't wait to read "The Minecraft scam NO ONE is talking about!: Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels"
@@GracemarieJohnson2763 I think he's joking. It would be so ironic.
@@GracemarieJohnson2763 ofc its sarcastic
Yeah lol
🤣
getting a book like this and then finding out its about other books similar to one you bought,saying its a scam, you would be VERY disappointed. just imagine it.
i finally feel famous now that my thumbaul has been poorly cropped into a book. always been my dream really
watl watl
Bruh
Ah yes. Your "thumbaul"
certified wattles moment
oh, hello
This is a certified "Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels" classic
Lol
Lol
Lol
Lol
Lol
Now we just need to see if they make a book off of this video lmao
hey it’s the red flags game guy
@@5280carspotting omggggggggggggggggg
you're giving em ideas
@@hl2betafan based user name.
@@Starrieyedhockey had nothing else to choose
"The Villagers were much more aggressive towards Villagers."
That takes "Why are you hitting yourself" to a whole new level, what a plot twist.
RGN pulled a real parental move on us at the end; “im not mad, just disappointed”
hope the scammer sees this video.
As Outside Xtra said: "That's even worse!"
They'll make a book out of it...
@@TheyCallMeIce Lol
What do you think they're gonna do be sad and never scam again? They'll just make more books.
plottwist: i hope this video gets published
You could band together a bunch of these RUclipsrs and sue them if you wanted to, its so blatant you couldn't lose (and it would be free publicity but for legal reasons you never saw that).
AGREED
Definitely
It might be expensive tho
Hmm it'll cost more than it's worth
Issue is it is almost impossible to track the author(s) down, since they use a false alias and all the adresses link to Amazon and their kindle publishing program.
2:22 He used a font called "Arcade Classic" which has that exact spacement issues (T's and C's are the main causes of these errors). The big problem behind this font is that it is not free for commercial use!
The more you look the worse this book gets in terms of infringement
@@RetroGamingNow How would you feel if the covers were ACTUALLY GOOD?
@@jacobwilks9204 Probably just as bad
A shitty font that can't be used for free 😂
wow, give some weeks and we might even discover that the hex colors used in the cover and title bar are also copyright infringements
This seems so much more nefarious and disturbing than it should be. The thought of an AI copying video titles, screenshots, the video's entire dialogue, formatting it, publishing and printing dozens of almost-cohesive books with generated author names with zero human interaction is unsettling.
It’s like some weird robot crime ring from a shifty cyberpunk game
Zero human interaction? Who gets the money from selling the books then?
@@Ponera-Sama me fr
Sad af tho that people actually fall for these things
Just makesme realize how desperately I need to get into e-commerce. Obviously some idiots out there were buying enough of these books for the culprit to continue taking the risk.
I just gotta provide like eco friendly q-tips or some garbage that enough people want to buy online to make me money lmao 😅
I feel bad for Grian and other creaters that still doesn't know about whats happening here.
"creaters"
I love Retro's channel It's Perfect for Minecrafters, kids and adults
Don't forget building and crafting guides 😂
@@anthonymarino3920 and graphic novels
@@KevinIsNice6984 how foolish to forget the graphic novels of minecrafting
That are indeed confirmed Canon. To be perfect for minecrafters kids and adults
ah yes the 3 genders, Minecrafter, Kid and Adult.
Man, the whole roast of the cover is already so great. You can just feel the calm anger being held back. It's great. Justafied, definitely, but also funny to watch.
@mind relaxing stupid copy-paste bot
It's like a food critic. XD
@mind relaxing
I will ignore this :]
also the american psycho fade in and out was a nice touch
Honestly thought the Witch image was from an old DanTDM video
The thought of someone transcribing a hermit craft video into a $10 book is really funny
When you put it like that, I almost want to read it, lol
“The villagers were much more aggressive towards the villagers.” What wise words
xd
Tears rolled out as she leaned closer. she opened her lips, and she said something I would never forget. ever. "the villagers are much more aggressive towards the villager"
Society
3:33 "i am no graphic designer" i study grahic design and you are right about absolutely everything, but what hurts even more, I've seen actual billboards looking like this 😭
Hello fellow designer! It's crazy how often bad design turns up, ain't it?
I'm not 100% sure, but doesn't Amazon have a guaranteed return policy, or does it depend on the seller? Just bringing this up because you might be able to get your $10 back and return that abomination.
I think so too man
it depends on the seller
Depends on product settings
I would frame it
I'm going to burn it! Stay tuned...
"however, the villagers were much more aggressive to the villagers"
Masterclass writing right there
Yes
Who knew villagers were capable of civil wars?
Ah yes, the floor is made out floor
the villager's village would then be villaged by the villagers aggressive to the villagers
village
I too, *village*
The Minecraft scam NO ONE is talking about: Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels
Early verified comment with no likes or comments?
@@miecaf Bruh he is a content creator wdym
@@miecaf I find it hard to believe you don't know who mysticat is
@@dragoncat60 who said I don't I've literally watched like 6 of his videos
Can RNG make a video investigating these verified comment bots? I swear I have no clue why these are happening
I realized this video was on my home page 2 years later. I really hope the situation was dealt with, if it's still going on that's some bs man.
As someone who really adores Grian, and looks up to him a lot, this _infuriates_ me. The whole thing infuriates me, people shouldn’t be able to get away with this.
FR, I’m glad they didn’t go past ep 9 but like why did they skip 8?
“However, the villagers were much aggressive towards villagers”
"I used the villagers to defeat the villagers"
Lol
Villager wars should actually be a thing in MC
@@borritoguy2286 Villager News already did that!
@@ARandomSpace they are talking about in minecraft (game)
I would definitely consider making a claim against this author for a violation of your copyright.
it breaks so many laws
But did he fond out who the author is?
Amazon can. I figure if he gets an attorney, the attorney can force Amazon to allow him to file the suit against the perp. Or, he can contact Amazon's asset' s protection branch, prove his identity somehow after disclosing his situation, and A.P. can forward the info to his attorney. Tomato, tomado.
Love you, Leonard, you’re doin’ the lord’s work out here
Haha I was your 666th like >:)
The Minecraft scam NO ONE is talking about!: Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels
Imagine if this video was made into a book
@@RetroGamingNow hopefully never.
@@entity_night That would be funny though, a book exposing the author
The irony...
“Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels” will now permanently be ingrained into my memory. Thank you, jefferey miner covington
For the love of god, please sue them. You could learn so much in discovery! And you can recover for their wrong doing. This is as clear cut as it really gets.
Mm. It’s hard to since their using pseudonyms but maybe with an actual’s lawyers help he could. But it might not be worth the time effort or money.
I'm starting to think this person needs to be sued
A lot of money.
@yes we will Speaking of bots and people who should get sued...
@@Noam-Bahar Already did.
@@inendlesspain4724 same
Wow! Ya think?
I think Microsoft also should get involved with the suit, just to help discourage this from happening again.
What was yours favorite book growing up?
Girls: Twilight
I died of laughter reading that as a Hermitcraft fan
How to save this?
@@nhantnt what lol
@@nhantnt screenshot
YES! FINALLY!!!
My dad got me and my brother kindle unlimited and the only ebooks on that subscription are these stupid graphic novels that are actually RUclips videos! It makes me so angry to see someone’s hard work being stolen by some randos which are actually making money off of it! Finally, someone has realized this. Hopefully, something will be done about it and me and my brother could actually read something good and original once again.
Oh, yuck. Are you saying that you've seen "books" like this scraped from other genres of RUclips videos as well? It seemed likely that there could be, and RetroGaming was only seeing Minecraft ones because the breadcrumbs left by the initial book were Minecraf (perfect for kids and adults) specific...
@@bsidethebox Yes they did other Minecraft RUclipsrs, Roblox, and some Gacha videos. It's so annoying because I want to just read a Minecraft comic and I get these sussy "books" instead.
I recommend you try the legend of Dave the villager and diary of a surfer villager if you are a good reader, cringey named I know but the content is not bad at all
@@ChameleonRC I have read those they were amazing! 😃
Hmmm..... Sounds to me like there is a market for original Minecraft story books. What constitutes an "amazing" Minecraft story which isn't simply any other story, but set in Minecraft? What is it that makes it a good MINECRAFT story?
Dude, this is nuts. I went on Amazon and reported the copyright issues with all of these "miner" authors. Who knows if anything comes out of all of this, but great job bringing this to light.
take it as a compliment, they know ur worth even if it wasnt legal
hi lynix
Lol hi
Lynixity!
Doni is a duck
imagine getting trolled by a duck☠️☠️☠️
I love how the initial reaction isn’t
“I’m so angry that these people are copyrighting my videos!!!”
but instead it’s
“Your cover art is a piece of trash
I mean yeah, if you're gonna copy someone, at least do it right
XD
Sounds like the NFT scammers have finally learned about fungible items and want to expand their scams into the real world where things actually have some kind of value…too bad these books are only worth the paper and ink they’re printed on.
id pay good money for one with a print date prior to this video.
I feel like "worth _less_ than the sum of its parts" applies here...
Why are you bringing nft scammers into this? This video and the scam literally have nothing to do with them.
@@captainszasz5836 it's.. it's a little thing called a 'joke'
Wouldn't be surprised if the author behind these scam books is also an NFT worshipper.
2:07 That is also technically illegal according to Minecraft's copyright rules... Using the Minecraft logo. You also can't use the word "Minecraft" as the first or biggest word on your book cover. They could probably sue this person and easily win. Surprised this person was even able to get away with just the cover!!!
As a Minecraft writer myself, I made sure to research the company's copyright laws so I wouldn't accidentally break any rules. That's how I know this.
Yeah that's the only rule they're actually breaking. You really think you have a "copyright" on a free RUclips video of someone else's videogame? Lol.
@@bradthunderpants3283 this is far too nuanced for someone who calls themself lib smasher sixty nine but the answer is it depends on whether the video is derivative or transformative which would be determined by a court. commentary and let's plays in general are transformative, so yes the video creator would gain copyright of that video, not the video game creator, however it would depend on the video
people make millions off of let's plays without paying licensing fees to video game copyright holders because the video is considered its own work with its own copyright
@@bradthunderpants3283 sh
@@bradthunderpants3283 well yeah? even if the youtubers didn't have copyright of their videos because it's of someone else's game, all the same copyright infringement against the video would still apply, just infringing on Minecraft/Mojang/Microsoft's copyright instead of some random youtuber that probably doesn't have the money to bother fighting it in court.
@@bradthunderpants3283 That’s exactly how it works, each video is edited and overlayed with various individual edits and commentary. The content may be originating from Minecraft, but the creator is doing commentary and adding value. You sound like you’re not very knowledgeable on this subject, consider doing research
- 4:40 I don't think they used a speech-recognition program, I think whatever program they used to rip and generate the book just downloaded the auto-captions from YT.
- To be honest, I'm often surprised and impressed by the creativity of scammers. I mean, who the heck thought of this? 🤨 What scams will they think of next? 🤔
this feels similar to the bot problem on twitter where they would rip off artist's work and put them on tshirts
Imagine the people behind these books make a book out of this video. 🤣
Anyways, it is really worrying that people are getting scammed with this kind of bs.
It really is. I hope Retro bands together with the other 11 victims of the scam and sue the author.
that'd be one of the greatest blunders ever
@peace wtf?
@@schnabox just a bot
@@VirgoShelter seems fitting that a scamming bot is putting comments on a video about a scamming bot copying videos for books😂
This is clearly selling to parents and grandparents desperate to make children happy but not understanding or caring about the content. The number of gifts I got as a kid which were clearly the first item the person found that matched an item on my wishlist by having just one word in common...
But hey, at least I got gifts so I can't complain for myself. I just feel bad that the adults are getting scammed and are missing out on making their children actually happy.
Thats exactly what is happening.
I know when i was in first grade my favorite color was "pink" and this resulted in a few too many gifts that were blatantly from the girls section, so i started saying "red".
Far too many people think giving a child any random hunk of plastic of a certain dollar value counts as an adequate gift. I know my parents had fights with my extended family over the obsession some of them had with gift giving when they are unqualified to get a decent gift.
And i think that describes the target of the scam "unqualified gift givers" because even a child would be put off by Grian's "S7E2 as a book" when they already watched the episode and the text is so inaccurate, and the Author not being "Grian" should be a dead giveaway.
Edit: spelling/grammar
@@jasonreed7522 As a Hermitcraft fan myself, I would be furious if I got a crappy ripoff Hermitcraft book that doesn’t even have proper grammar or any consent from the actual hermits at all. I feel so bad for anyone that could have gotten one of those books from someone who looked at it and said “oh it’s Minecraft related I’ll just get it for them”
@@catphin8495 Especially since the Hermits have all collectively agreed that they won't do any Hermitcraft branding. Mumbo for Mayor shirts? Sure. Barge shirts? That's a Grian Original! But a Hermitcraft such-and-such, and hey it's got bells? No. If an actual Hermit did that they'd be removed from the server, if I'm not misremembering Xisuma's video on the topic.
1:57 The most calm and brutal roast ever
Also, when you do find who it is, please sue them
wow, can't believe how many famous youtubers these people/person were copyrighting and getting away with it, especially as any amount of traction and publicity would immediately alert some of the people within the minecraft community, including yourself! and now they hopefully get to pay the price, pretty risky game for them to play, but cool that you found them!
The piglin one with Endermen on the cover was pure comedy. I couldn’t help but laugh 😅
as a graphic designer that cover brings me immense pain. i could design something better in 5 minutes. heck practically anyone could design something better in an hour
I took an intro to graphics design for high school, didn't pay attention, and failed. Yet still I'm 100% confident I could do much better xD
As an amateur artist with an egregiously simple style, you're completely correct.
I promise you that the school powerpoints i used to make in school looked better than this
Bold of you to assume the cover isn't computer generated
i kinda want to try making one tbh. just for fun.
"The villagers were much more aggressive to villagers conducting patrols and raids" ah yes, perfect sense
hmm yes, the villager here is made out of villager
I legit had a stroke trying to Read that phrase
I was laughing so hard that I fell out of my chair and now I think I broke my back.
me when i go to a villager outpost and kill a villager captain
Me when villager
He went from being a detective in Minecraft to being a detective in real life.
Yeah right? It's pretty awesome
He's gonna be a detective in real life about books that stole him being a detective in minecraft
10:25 This is the best self plug I've ever heard. You're very convincing. Subbed.
12:04 no it is also Automated. There is an API that skips the intro and the outro and any sponsered content in the video. Even the subscribe reminders. All the work here is automated.
(sorry for my bad Englisch)
The world English being misspelled and automated being capitalized are the only mistakes
I understand how they can make your videos into the books, but I am really confused why they make Grian videos into books because they are nothing near to a documentary. Just a lets play.
"alright now let's do this!"
*picture shows an almost black fade transition between a zoom-in on a mob and a half-built wall
@@strawberrana Off topic but hello fellow volume beta enjoyer
I mean, I could understand if they made his POV of 3rd Life/Last Life into a book (though fanfic sites like AO3 and Wattpad already got that covered), but most of the videos that got turned into books are, as you call them, just normal letsplays.
@@tatianah.a9307 it would be pretty funny if they just stole a fanfic lol
-cuz I bet the probable chaos generated from the incident would be quite fun to watch xD-
@@dinowaffles1317 If they stole a fanfic they would have decent grammar
I actually think transforming you minecraft theories in a book of some kind would be a pretty good idea. If done well it could turn out to be a really interesting read
I've thought about making a coffee table book where each page has like a diagram of a theory (or part of one). I think it could work really well
@@RetroGamingNow absolutely, that would be awesome for kids, adults and graphic novels!
havent popped in my head, but i think a book as a limited time product for christmas or something would work well
@@RetroGamingNow Get on it! I would definitely love to see theory books on my bookshelf
@@RetroGamingNow do I have to read it with a tinfoil hat on?
Reminds me of the "I'd love have this on a t-shirt" scam that appeared on twitter
This is actually something that happened with a bunch of Wattpad fanfics a while back, hell it still happens sometimes. It got to the point where sometimes people will add in a page that talked about it and said that it was an illegal scam since it was an automated thing.
I saw Grian in the thumbnail and my heart almost dropped, thank god
This is more criminal than villagers offering you cruse of binding 1 for 64 Emeralds.
Or wandering traders selling you literal weath seeds for emeralds
dirt for a full inventory of block of emeralds
is it as criminal as the villagers raiding the villagers
How about Piglin lighting you on soul fire for giving them a gold ingot?
I tried leaving a "review" saying they stole your work as per this video, however I am apparently not eligible to leave a review on Amazon since I haven't bought anything ever on their website... Sorry man I tried my best
Additional note, I'm from South Africa anddd... We don't use Amazon. Maybe some importers here and there but rarely anyone has ever used Amazon, most have never even visited their site
@@Lance_Tonkin98 Leaving a "review" saying that the author stole the original work is a big brain move
Lemme' help you friend if it's still up, Imma flame the author with a hella bad review
@@braydenbanks4228 don’t portray yourself as a stan
@@jacobpugpoirier3350 Guess what, dillweed?! I was already planning on submitting that review before reading that comment, stop acting like you're the comment police, because people hate backseat moderation worse than white knighting, or as you so crudely put it "portraying myself as a stan."
As an aspiring writer, this has made me realize something.
Finalizing a book is easy as fuck. If these scammers can do it with bare to minimal effort at all, I can totally do it.
Secondly, this scam, as a aspiring writer, is egregious. They've taken someone else's work, that they've probably spent hours on in some cases, and maybe days in others, and sold it as their own product. What's worse is, they haven't even taken the time and effort to use proper conjugation.
I may not be a good writer, but damn if I can do better than this, I've done well. X'D
Yeah, sometimes things like this make you realize that all of that self-doubt you had about something was just Imposter Syndrome. Keep going at it, with more time and practice you'll get more experience and your writing will improve. Just don't be afraid and don't worry if you didn't write a Shakespeare, nobody else except Shakespare has done it and besides, even the greats have to start somewhere don't they?
Anyways, I don't know much about writing, but I hope that you get to do what you want and achieve success!
I can say your books are way better that this dogwater in the video, and that without even buying yours in the first place.
"Do you watch hermitcraft?"
"Nah bro i read it"
1:50 “This tome is an unpleasant specimen.” - This is gonna be a great video..
I know it's really bad copyright infringement, however this is actually a super interesting exercise in using a program to transform one format of media into another. I might attempt to make something similar, though with improved design layout. (I wouldn't use it for stealing, of course. Just for personal fun)
The way you could make some REAL cash is if it goes from text to video
@@RetroGamingNow I'll make it go both ways.
@@RetroGamingNow CaryKH made a video on something similar
@@RetroGamingNow look up carykh I’m pretty sure they published a video on this
@@RetroGamingNow see, this is what onlyfans feels like
Best way to combat this: Put out your own official version. I know it might seem bizarre, but there is a gap in the book market for this kind of content. Parents are looking for any minecraft related books to try to get their kids to read and there are so many adults and kids who have an easier time with reading instead of watching and listening to a video.
This is an interesting idea. I've thought about how it would be cool to have a coffee table book with some diagrams from my theories. I think it could work really well.
@@RetroGamingNow That's actually an awesome idea. DO IT!!!!
@@RetroGamingNow I mean, I'll gladly be your first customer. I'd love to get some to donate to our local library so that your tales can reach a whole new audience of Minecraft fans. Some with certian types of sensory processing disorders can experience pain from just listening to talking and watching camera movement, but they still love Minecraft and they want a way to participate in the hobby. This is an excellent way to make your content more accessible. Besides the obvious upsides, you'd also have a clearer way in copyright striking those shops. Any lost revenue recoup from those shops can be donated to charity, since their money might as well be stolen. Now I think about it, this could likely help people looking for refunds as well. 🤔
Did I do good here? I feel like I did. 😁
@@RetroGamingNow YES! Do it
The whole "Takes a screenshot at every 20 second timestamp" thing is particularly sad. This guy's not even trying to hide what he's doing.
Remember those new Minecraft guidelines that everyone was freaking out for no reason over?
*THIS* is what they were targeted at.
I agree.
9:01
They printed a knockoff book of my favorite Minecraft RUclipsrs ON MY BIRTHDAY!? How dare they
Stealing someone's property is very illegal
This is a certified, proofread and published bruh moment
Agreed
I can't wait for "Never Gonna Give you Up: Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels"
Imagine if they find whoever did this and everyone who got their Videos Book-itized sued the guy collectively. Would be brilliant karma.
@RetroGamingNow bruh I'm a professional hacker, and I'm friends with like 20 other professional hackers. I can track this guy down to his Ip address and tell you it.
@@sandwoman999 DHCP
I feel bad about the scam but I love how he says perfect for minecrafters kids and adults,top builder ideas,guide book,graphic novels so well it seems so real its so funny
4:12 i think the text of the book was completely ripped from the transcript of youtube's auto generated subtitles and the creator of the book was too lazy to proofread.
5:41 not only is that a screenshot from Grians season 7 of hermitcraft BUT IT ALSO VERY CLEARLY has "Iskall85 left the game" WOW
LITERALLYYYY
OMG BRUH
This is news above and beyond the MC-YT community, if one considers what other content they may be stealing (i.e., beyond a couple dozen Minecraft videos), and potential liability (?) Amazon may be exposed to as the publisher for repeatedly failing to perform due diligence (it wasn't a one-off). Probably more to the story here...
I wonder about this. I have a suspicion that these Minecraft scams are just an example of a much deeper and more elaborate publishing scheme. I'm keeping my eyes open.
The problem isn't really Amazon. They're just a medium of exchange. Trying to claim they are liable for anything is stupid because. Well, they're just a store. Unless the store does something wrong like tampering with a product, you can't hold them liable. It's like saying that, a mouse you find in a load of bread, that no one would notice if they didn't open and check the bread, is the stores fault. It's not, it's the producer of a product who has to ensure that product is good, and didn't.
The people who should be held responsible and the only people reasonably able to held responsible, then, are simply the people making this.
@@linhero797 I'd agree if it was an item someone published themselves and listed on the marketplace. In this case Amazon physically printed the book and registered the ISBN on behalf of the "author". They're both the publisher and the store.
@@linhero797 your mouse in a load of bread analogy is nowhere near being comparable to this and I'm sure that you yourself realize this. A better analogy is if a toy store actively listed a minecraft toy that wasn't made by Mojang. This doesn't have anything to do with the general quality of the product, this is a matter of blatant copyright infringement. That is something that Amazon is definitely responsible for vetting and it's literally against their very own terms of service. That, along with what the other person said, yes man, Amazon is indeed part of the problem here.
@@ermwhatdaheck My Analogy doesn't make sense cause. You missed the point. The point is. A store, is a third party, unrelated to the product assuming they are not related to the creation of the product. (Something I was unaware about Amazon originally)
Because of this. They don't have to do the kind of things someone like a Publishing Company has to, such as ensuring no copyright infringing materials and such aren't in their products. They COULD. But they don't HAVE TO. They operate on a different set of rules because they are different kind of business.
But nevertheless. I do admit I was wrong because I was unaware that Amazon was the printer, and effectively publisher, of these books.
it looks like somebody made a automatic software which screenshots a video like every 20 seconds and writes a "book" on it by using voice to text. Then the thief just corrects a few mistakes, creates a bad thumbnail and uploads it to amazon
Yep, pretty much.
the thumbnail is probably automated too judging by it not being the right image in a lot of cases and all of them having overall the same format
As soon as i realised the Image with Grian on, before you even said what it was i was shouting like: GRIAN!?
What People sometimes do to get dem Cash.
The McDonald’s Minecraft copy is literally the first RUclips result when you search up “how to build a McDonald’s restaurant in Minecraft” by a RUclipsr I used to watch quite a lot a few years ago
Always always always make videos on scams! The #1 scam prevention strategy is simply educating others on scams. Thanks for bringing this to the public attention
I've seen these awful scam books go around on Amazon for years now. This isn't just a recent thing. I'm honestly surprised people get scammed by this too.
This. Is. Insane. First of all, I wanted to to say thank you so much for crafting this video and bringing this awful situation to light. This is well made and you clearly put a lot of effort into tracking down the ISBNS and all the books and authors and websites and creators and such. This is especially sad to me because I can remember when I watched all these RUclipsrs and their videos and I think a younger version of myself might have actually been inclined to buy these. You're right, it's honestly just disappointing rather than triggering as to why someone would do this. I have to hope that the other RUclipsrs who were scammed and the scammer(s) themself discover this video. Also, I'm sorry that your hard work was stolen. That's not fair to you, whoever bought that book, and your viewers. Again, thank you for making this video. I would say you did the right thing.
I feel sooo bad for you guys, but especially the smaller creators who don’t have as much of a big appearance, so if we can, we should band together and try to notify all of these creators who had their content stolen notified about what is going on
I'm glad I saw this. This should get out to as many people as possible. Especially RUclipsrs. If you're not safe no one is.
I have a small theory that explains the weird grammar and spelling issues in the book. RUclips has a feature called "transscripts" which generates text based off what the video is saying, coverting it into text with a automated bot of some kind could potentially copy paste and slap onto a PDF file to convert into a book. That can explain the whole illager-villager or absence of punctuation, there's a chance that these books are just produced with little human involvement, only churned for profit. Either that whoever makes these books are very lazy.
Oh wait you literally just mentioned that right after I unpaused the video to write this comment. I hope you know that you can potentially sue the person or people making these books. This is really slimey activity.
Maybe true
Personally I would sue them. This is so blatant and obvious that it should be easy to win. Or just threaten to sue and extort some money out of them.
Hmmm extortion you say? Sounds kind of illegal... In all seriousness though the guys who make this auto generated crap would be very hard to sue and win. First, you don't know how they are because they are using fake names. Second, and probably the biggest reason, they most likely live in a country that doesn't acknowledge US or European copyright laws. If both those cases turn out to be untrue sue the hell out of them but you need substantial damages I'd imagine to get a subpoena for their info from Amazon.
I really feel bad about this in a weird way because I remember joking about this with some pals on a VC one night. Take some VG lore videos, run them through a speech to text thing, robbing some screenshots and slapping it together into a book to sell for cheap on Amazon. Admittedly it wasn't Minecraft but the similarities are uncomfortable.
Your pals are the writers
Oh god the LORE
If you would have seached to see if it had been done and found these books what would you have done?
@@the_sky_is_blue_and_so_am_I probably nothing considering that we were _hopefully_ just fucking around
@@mediocremason Ok I just wanted to know :)
Honestly if these were done well it would be a good opportunity to get kids to read more. A series like hermitcraft or other let's plays could make some good stories. The old Yogscast stuff could be turned into short stories. Of course with proper permissions from creators giving them royalties.
I personally can't wait to read "The Minecraft scam NO ONE is talking about!: Perfect for Minecrafters Kids and Adults, Top Builder Ideas, Guide Book, Graphic Novels" a comment perfect for minecrafters kids and adults top builder ideas, guide book, graphic novels
Bringing awareness to this means that this bs will stop
Says who? For all we know there are millions of youtubers are still being ripped off like this...
@@Player-jh4ko copyright laws
@@Ado_Edem Copyright laws are a slippery slope tbh...
@yes we will we need to bring awareness to this idiot who spams this youtube link
or more people might buy the book
Disgusting people. I've watched a lot of these videos myself, and they're great, but I don't see how this 'Miner' person thinks they can get away with copying audio from a literal minecraft video and put it into a book. This is really the most stupid thing I've seen so far this year lol, hope you raise awareness and get these people sued.
I have a feeling that those books are from that woman with the ads about her "Amazon wealth creation technics". In the ads, she said that it was about her selling short stories. And "the best thing" (as she said in the ads) is that she didn't have to write any of them. Her ads were not about selling the books but about her "wealth creation technic". She would teach buyers of her "course" how to do it. Her ads ran most of last year. She had a kiwi accent and I thought that she was from New Zealand because of it. She was middle-aged and had tussled-style mousey-blonde hair.
You make the best content out there. It's a shame someone does this. Thank you so much for the effort you put in your video's. They're truly amazing.
FIRST
Okok that is just- I am so sorry that this happened to you.
Looks like it!
Nice
Ey
@@RetroGamingNow sue the guy.
@@RetroGamingNow You must gather the other 11 victims of this scam and sue the author. Big time
For the last week or so I've been seeing an ad on RUclips which starts with a woman claiming to have sold thousands of books on Amazon without having written anything. I don't know anything else because the skip button becomes available at this point, which I hit while (semi-sarcastically) thinking "plagiarist". I'm now wondering if I wasn't more correct than I had thought.
i just love thinking of the idea to turn one single, not lore heavy, outdated hermitcraft episode into a book
It makes sense that grian has a lot of books,not only is he MEGA famous but he has lots of vids
I have some minecraft books that are mostly officially endorsed by Mojang, but this is just straight up plagurizim.
Returning to the original Question of the Witch though:
I think this should tell us once AGAIN that MC is a broken world
needing Fixing, whetever Retro's Theory is right or wrong.
I hope one day we can do actual, permanent Change to the MC-World.
Retro: "We need to use whatever avenues we have to shut them down."
Me: I wish to put my foot up their-
Whoops, you have to put the CD *up your a*
I reported them. You may not be mad, but I am upset on your behalf. It's your hard time and effort they completely took from you. I love your content and it's frustrating that someone literally stole it to profit.
sussy boi
Agreed, you got my respect man
@@exceptionalgamer6846 what?
@@shawnthomas7548 he said sussy boi
@@TK-7193 well I know but- why??
Zoe Bee did a video on this. The companies who make these crappy minecraft books hire gig workers to do the unautomatable work of removing intros and outros
This is happening to a lot of content creators. I've seen a ton of works from several websites being published like that.
Save & Shared. A lot of Kids Of My Church are into MC. So, I Shared it to FB to Warn Parents of the Scam.
0:13 "Stares at the ceiling in existential pain"
I find this hilarious, but also, Retro, are you okay, man?
At first I was worried that Grian did some bad shit, but I’m happy that isn’t the case.
Lol same, I was worried looking at the thumbnail
This is fascinating, and infuriating. I wonder if Grian or any of the other creators know about it.
As a big fan of Grian, I was outraged to say the least. I hope this operation gets shut down at the least, maybe even sued for copyright iinfringement