Amazon won't sell a self-published memoir that has Star Wars in the title

I have a bad feeling about this. Just after we heard Amazon stopped selling someone's novels because they contained the allegedly trademarked phrase "space marine," the online book retailer has also pulled a memoir whose title mentions Star Wars.

Talking to Boing Boing, author Gib Van Ert explains:

Amazon has decided to remove the book I self-published on Kindle, "A Long Time Ago: Growing up with and out of Star Wars", from their store for an unspecified trademark issue. Their emails are vague, but they seems to being saying that I have to have Lucasfilm's permission before selling on their store a book that talks about Star Wars. It's a crazy position—Star Wars is a massive pop cultural and generational phenomenon, as my book tries to explain through a personal narrative.

And yes, this is why Amazon encouraging independent and self-published authors to rely on the site as their main outlet is potentially problematic. [Boing Boing]