In April 2010 we asked Can You Be Sued For Illegally Downloading a Book? The answer was yes – if publishers are willing to incur a lot of public relations heat for going after the likes of teenagers or old people. It would take an intolerable provocation or the loss of a lot of money to piracy – or both – for a publisher to seek damages in court from those whose crime was nothing more flagrant than sharing a file.

We cited the case of a music downloader sued by the recording industry who passed up the chance to settle for $4,000. When his case was finally adjudicated he was required to pay $675,000 to a plaintiff maddened like a stuck boar by the theft of its property. Though the Recording Industry Association of America incurred withering PR wrath, it sent a signal to all would-be music filesharers, however innocent or ignorant, to think twice before capturing that tune. (See He Should Have Paid the Two Dollars)

But surely that couldn’t happen in book publishing, that refined industry once known as The Gentleman’s Profession. Or could it?

John Wiley & Sons, one of the oldest and most distinguished publishers in America, finds itself in the role of that maddened boar. How deep is Wiley’s wound? Freeloaders are feasting on the publishers Dummies series. For instance, says Wiley, they purloined over 74,000 e-copies of its Photoshop CS5 All-in-one for Dummies.

According to BBC.co.uk, “Papers filed in New York and revealed by the Torrent Freak news site said four defendants were involved. The firm’s lawyer said that he believed this would be the first trial of its kind based on the use of Bittorrent. The peer-to-peer communications protocol allows users to upload and download files to each others’ computers. Wiley had previously filed 15 lawsuits to obtain the identities of about 200 people believed to have infringed the copyright of its titles. It said in papers filed last October that users had ‘engaged in the illegal copying and distribution of Wiley’s ‘For Dummies’ books through the peer-to-peer file sharing software known as Bittorrent’.”

Though Wiley seeks only the minimum statutory damages of $750, the Copyright Law allows as much as $150,000 if the accused fights the case and loses.

Details in ‘For Dummies’ guide publisher, Wiley, seeks piracy trial

Richard Curtis

This blog post was originally published in Digital Book World as Bad PR Be Damned, Besieged Dummies Publisher Sues Filesharers

Of the many ways for publishers to combat copyright infringement, the one they have been loath to employ is  to sue the end user.  Because some downloaders may be ignorant kids or confused old people, going after them can be a public relations disaster, making the righteous plaintiffs look like corporate bullies and turning the defendants into  folk heroes. But there’s a limit to restraint, and after Bit Torrent users on the demonid.me website illegally downloaded a Dummies book almost 75,000 times, the publisher of the series reached it.

“John Wiley & Sons ,” reports Publishers Weekly, “filed a copyright infringement suit last week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York involving 27 ‘John Does’ the publisher claims are illegally copying and distributing its For Dummies books through the use of Bit Torrent file sharing software. At present, Wiley only knows the IP addresses and names of the information services providers of the John Does, but a company spokesperson said the intent of the lawsuit is to learn the names of the infringers so the company can contact them to work out a settlement.”

Though Wiley hasn’t actually sued anyone yet, that is clearly an option if one of the John Does becomes a John Screw You.  Lawsuits against end users have been brought by music and movie companies after they exhausted more moderate measures. (See Fileshare This) And though those actions have provoked great outrage by the victims and their libertarian defenders, some pirates have been put out of business and many end users have thought twice before clicking on Download.  But Wiley seems to be a rare instance of such an action in the book industry. For details read Wiley Goes After Bit Torrent Pirates.

For the full archive of E-Reads piracy postings, visit Pirate Central, especially Curtis Agency, E-Reads Launch Program to Neutralize Pirates

Richard Curtis

Photo: Wikipedia

Adopting advanced technology, Curtis Agency and E-Reads have teamed up to locate and take down pirated files of their authors’ books.

The system, developed by Muso TNT, protects against files uploaded by pirates to filesharing sites like rapidshare and megaupload.  Files on these websites show up on Google search results and are therefore accessible to users who might otherwise purchase the files through legitimate channels.

The Size of the Problem

Though we have often contended that piracy is the number one threat to the e-book industry (see A Bootleg E-Book Bazaar Operates in Plain Sight), skeptics may not be aware of the extent of the problem. Boasting that “The Internet is the largest copying machine ever invented,” torrentfreak.com this week ranked filesharing sites according to traffic in the month of July 2011. The first figure represents unique monthly visitors, the second monthly pageviews:

1 4shared Cyberlocker 55,000,000/ 2,500,000,000
2 Megaupload Cyberlocker 37,000,000/ 400,000,000
3 Mediafire Cyberlocker 34,000,000 /330,000,000
4 Filestube Meta-search 34,000,000/ 280,000,000
5 Rapidshare Cyberlocker 23,000,000/ 280,000,000
6 The Pirate Bay Torrent index 23,000,000 /650,000,000
7 Fileserve Cyberlocker 19,000,000 /190,000,000
8 Hotfile Cyberlocker 16,000,000 /110,000,000
9 Torrentz.eu Meta-search 15,000,000/ 340,000,000
10 Depositfiles Cyberlocker 14,000,000/ 110,000,000

How Muso TNT Works.

Using the Muso technology, legitimate content providers authorize the antipiracy service to launch search engine “spiders” to crawl over the Internet and detect unauthorized files. A significant feature is that the search criterion is by author, not by title. As the spiders locate pirated files, they store the results on a password-protected login page for review.

Lawful Takedowns

The author, publisher or agent may view the files to confirm that they are not authorized. Then the user clicks authorization for Muso to issue, to fileshare site administrators, batch takedown emails that are preformatted to adhere to Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice and takedown procedures. Within hours the files are taken down automatically. In the event you send a takedown notice for a file to which you do not have the rights, the uploader has 14 days to dispute your action.

Results

We recently tested the program.  “The results exceeded our wildest dreams,” says technical director Anthony Damasco.  “On Friday afternoon we identified some 3500 illegally shared files of titles by our authors and ordered them removed. It took me 45 minutes. By Monday just about every one of them had been taken down.”

The program does not cover every type of piracy but filesharing is one of the most commonplace, widespread and persistent.

The two companies have begun taking down unauthorized files of clients and “We will also extend, at no charge, antipiracy coverage to all new clients of both firms,” said CEO Richard Curtis. Authors, agents and publishers interested in Muso’s services may enroll by signing up below.  Enrollment with Muso is $15.00 per month per author. In the event that more take-downs are needed, Muso offers them at higher rates. Full disclosure: E-Reads receives a modest fee for referrals.

For further information contact Anthony Damasco at anthony@ereads.com or call 212 772 7363.

Click here to enroll with MUSO and start protecting your titles.

Instructions

1. Click signup and create an account

2. Select “Publishing” from the dropdown

3. When asked to create a campaign, enter author’s full name as it appear on his or her books

4. Allow the Muso bots to populate all the pirated files over 24 hours.

5. Login to Muso and start taking files down

For a complete archive of piracy-related postings, visit Pirate Central.