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Signed copies of Bob Dylan's new book The Philosophy of Modern Song have been confirmed to be forgeries, thanks to a dedicated community of autograph collectors who have worked to expose the scandal.

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On 25 November, Dylan acknowledged the scandal and admitted blame for using an autopen machine to sign his art prints and books which were sold as being "hand-signed".  It took a lot of fans calling out Dylan and his publisher to finally get to this point of vindication.

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The first vendor to sell signed copies of Dylan's book was Canadian Bookseller Indigo in Mid-October.  The signed editions were sold for $799 CAD (about $597 USD), which was seen as a good deal considering his authentic signature can go for more than $10,000.

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By the end of the month, some buyers began to get their signed copies from Indigo early. It was then that alarm bells first started to go off.  Seasoned collectors could tell right away that the books were not signed by a human hand. 

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Upon recognition of the deceit, angry buyers on Facebook and Reddit began to announce that they had demanded and received refunds from the Canadian company. Although, some were out some of the money they had paid which was non-refundable.

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Days after on October 21st, Indigo canceled all orders for the books, due to Simon & Schuster and Dylan deciding "to shift directions with [the] limited signed edition." They did not elaborate as to why.

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Some weeks passed until Simon & Schuster, The Philosophy of Modern Song publisher, started directly advertising for their own "signed" copies of Dylan's book.

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Despite it being known that these books contained forged signatures, Simon & Schuster pressed on with promoting the books as being personally signed by Dylan in a letter of authenticity dated 15 November.

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The blatant bending of the truth at this point enraged Dylan fans and autograph collectors alike.  Leading the charge,  Justin Steffman of Autograph COA ran a PR campaign to shine light on the scandal.

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After outlets like the NY times picked up the story, Simon & Schuster was forced to publicly acknowledge their misstep on 20 November.  Refunds for Dylan's book were again issued for a second time.

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A little over a month passed from the time the public first became aware of the fake signed books being sold by Dylan and his publisher, but the legendary singer remained silent the whole time until he finally acknowledged his misstep on 25 November. 

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At this point, all buyers should have been refunded for their purchases, but time will tell if Dylan plans to make any additional restitutions for his behavior. Hopefully the incident will serve as a warning to other authors who have been guilty of the same deceit. 

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