While Mikhaila has been vocal about her support for a thoroughly carnivorous diet, this book transcribes comments, interviews, and YouTube videos of the two Petersons and puts it together as a collection. It had no approval from either of the listed authors, no proceeds are heading their way, and fans have been fooled into buying the fake book with a horrendous, amateur photoshopped cover.
The guy who put the whole thing together is Johnny Rockermeier, a German YouTuber who has published one other book of Jordan Peterson transcriptions. His YouTube page is full of Peterson videos and interviews.
In fact, Rockermeier appears to be a fanboy. So why would he take it upon himself to attribute a book to Mikhaila and Jordan Peterson, hijacking and misappropriating their brand?
We reached out to Mikhaila who told us "[Rockermeier] did some German translations for my dad's videos a number of years ago on YouTube. But he shouldn't be publishing. We received an email and sent it to our lawyers and said, 'No you can't do that.' That was two weeks ago. Our lawyers didn't get on it fast enough. I don't know why Amazon isn't more on top of this kind of thing. It's happened before."
Disturbingly, a number of left-wing activist journalists and researchers have taken to Twitter to use the fake book as a line of attack against Mikhaila and her father. When put in their place by Mikhaila herself, they still haven't corrected their false assertions.
Some of the activists include Nathan Bernard and Becca Lewis, a social justice researcher who falsely claimed that Peterson's videos were part of an "alternative influence network" that led to the "alt-right" in a since-debunked study.
The Post Millennial was also able to connect with Rockermeier. When asked if he thought there might be a problem with publishing and selling a book without the authors' consent, he told us, "well they could contact me so I guess they're happy with it. In the book there's nothing they didn't say, and the pics are publicly available. [Mikhaila] even posted her mom in swimwear." He then added a smiley face with a tongue sticking out.
When asked about the claim on Amazon that, "for every paperback sold, Mikhaila and her father Dr. Jordan Peterson will receive $1.00 directly," Rockermeier said, "I will send their royalties when her Thinkspot is up. She's off Patreon now. But honestly, they don't need any more money."
Mikhaila Peterson went on to tell us that she plans to look for a way to get the fraudulent books removed. "Normally it doesn't bother me, yesterday I thought it was kind of funny. The cover is so cheesy that it's kind of funny. But I've gotten emails about what a terrible person I am and what a terrible person my dad is. No matter how resilient you are, it's tough reading a whole bunch of messages like that. People forget that anyone who has a platform is also a person."
As of writing Amazon is still selling the fraudulent books. Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Reader Comments
Wow bro! Would it be worse if he said that bitterly or nonchalantly?
or doesn't.
THEN,
The standard way would be to sue the guy for damages for wrongfully using his words, his speeches. Generally, that would mean that if that German guy sold a book in any particular U.S. state, (odds are he's probably sold to most of them), then you can bring a valid lawsuit against him for various causes and damages - such as folks whose friend told them they ought to read JP - and they bought this scam rather that one by JP. But maybe they never even know they got suckered. (That could result in a different set of damages, not lost income on the current legitimate books that such people would have otherwise bought, but also those who read this poorly organized, mistranslated effort; and those folks tell others, I read this - here take it! - it's a P.O.S. - and there's one or one hundred more lost possible JP customers.)
So say that JP files a suit against the SOB in Florida. You can serve the lawsuit by hiring a process server, but that depends on sundry legal treaties, and most lawyers would say: That's beyond me, I just do Intellectual Property litigation" you need to see, Lawyer 2 to ensure that such service is legal between Florida & Germany. (Or Canada & germany.)
THEN, you litigate, and get a verdict for 1.6 M EU. Meanwhile, he's spent all the money he's ever made off of this scam paying a lawyer over there.
THEN, you try to collect, (by this time, you've paid your attorney $50K? $200K?
THEN, the guy files bankruptcy in germany - and you probably are NOT EVER allowed to collect against: past due wages, pensions, disability payments, welfare payments, but only against assets owned free and clear by the scumbag.
So then he marries someone. Now ALL his property is presumed to be jointly owned in whole by he and also his wife, and since she wasn't involved in the tortiious activity, you can't collect against ANY of it.
For most folks, when suing an uninsured person, the potential recovery of damages might be $10K - if you're lucky - and that would go to the process servers, court fees, "costs."; NEXT to the lawer(whose total fees are now $500K) and finally to JP.
He may have some SEPARATE remedy by having his lawyer take advantage of the same law that causes certain websitees or videos to show the 'caneeled' screen because their true owner complained that same was an unauthorized usage.
That last is likely his best path, but involves the cost benefit analysis of having to pay his attorney the whole damn time.
Just FYI.
R.C.