SHANGHAI, China (AP) – The first hint that the Chinese version of Bill Clinton’s memoir might not be quite right is that for most of the book, he’s not even telling the story.

Alfred A. Knopf, publishers of the former president’s best-selling “My Life,” say they haven’t yet sold the Chinese-language rights to China. So China’s copyright thieves have struck again, concocting their own versions.

One 438-page paperback version called “Wode Shenghuo” (“My Life”) sells for 10 yuan ($1.20) at a temple book fair and carries Clinton’s photo on the cover, just like the 957-page original. But it’s not the same photo.

The copyright information incorrectly lists the original publisher as Simon & Schuster.

Oops. Simon & Schuster published Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Living History,” not her husband’s book.

The book lists “Clinton, HR” as the author, and just about all of it is lifted verbatim from the Chinese-language version of her memoir.

Piracy of books, movies, music and software is rampant in China, despite vows by Beijing to crack down. International trade groups estimate that theft of copyrights and patents costs Western companies $16 billion a year in sales.

“There’s sort of a habit developed here that anything … in the print media, is essentially in the public domain and allowed to be “borrowed,’ if you will,” said Charles M. Martin, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

An explosion in the variety and range of translated books makes it difficult, sometimes, to tell real from fake. Bookstores and kiosks carry numerous versions of many dozens of biographies and memoirs of famous celebrities, from Charlie Chaplin to billionaire Warren Buffett.

But in the case of the many versions of “My Life” circulating in China, it’s pretty obvious something’s amiss.

In one, the table of contents is lifted straight from “Living History,” with a few omissions. In another, the narrator for most of the book appears to be Hillary Clinton.

“My Life” has no table of contents.

“That isn’t piracy, it’s a completely illegal publication!” exclaimed an editor at Yilin Press, which most of the bogus books list as publisher.

The state-controlled publisher, based in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, says it complained to the government’s copyright bureau, which urged authorities to confiscate the unauthorized versions.

Visits to Shanghai’s government-run book wholesale market and several big, government-run bookstores turned up no copies of “My Life.” But the book is easily found at smaller bookstores.

Paul Bogaards, spokesman for Random House, which owns Knopf, said his company would “take all appropriate and necessary steps to combate piracy of the author’s work.”

Shanghai book traders said they expected authorized translations to arrive this month or next. Their expectation was hard to explain, since the rights haven’t been sold yet.

Yilin apologized last year after Simon & Schuster discovered that its authorized Chinese translation of “Living History” omitted or rewrote politically sensitive sections, such as a reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests. It said it was rushing its own version to stores to compete with counterfeit versions sold by street peddlers.

Simon & Schuster withdrew publishing rights anyway.