Okay, let me see if I have the pitch right—hypothetically speaking, let's say I have made, through many illegal means, a metric buttload of money and I want to have it laundered. I don't want to mess with the banking systems as they seem to be under high scrutiny these days (besides, everybody knows they're criminals anyway).
So, I grab a few hundred pages from Wikipedia [1], bundle them into a “book” which I “publish and sell [2]” via Amazon [3]. This costs me nearly nothing. Then I “buy” as many copies of this “book”, getting nearly 45% of the money as the “author.” Amazon won't complain, as they're getting a nice chunk of change. Heck, I could even get a higher percentage of the money if the “book” is bought through an affiliate program [4] I set up (this might push my percentage over 50%).
And who's to say this isn't going on right now [5]?
And you know, money laudering might explain some of these Etsy sites [6] (link via Regretsy [7]).
[2] http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller-account/mm-summary-page.html?topic=200260520
[4] https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
[5] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3618360
[6] http://www.etsy.com/listing/79507271/celebration-dress-applique-couture