While programs like Google Books are performing a great public service by scanning rare public domain books and making them available, sometimes in-copyright books are also scanned and inadvertently...
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Category: Piracy
EU Screws Up Copyright Ruling on Student’s Presentation
One of the few bright spots in US copyright law (along with DMCA Safe Harbors) is the legal principle of fair use - the idea that under certain conditions...
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Internet Archive Wants You to Turn Your Site Into a Pirate Site
The Open Library is a free web library slash pirate site run by the Internet Archive. It lends ebooks, and can be used by anyone online. A recent update...
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Amazon’s CreateSpace Provides a Safe Haven for Textbook Scams, Money Laundering, and Rampant Piracy
Amazon is destroying the Kindle Store from the inside out by letting broken algorithms run the show, punishing innocents while letting major scammers off scot-free. Createspace, in comparison, would...
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Online Piracy Is More Popular Than Ever … Says Company That Sells Anti-Piracy Services
Piracy is such a huge problem that several industries reported record revenues last year. TorrentFreak brings us news of a new global piracy report from Muso that shows record...
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Internet Archive Ignores DMCA Notices
Edit: The first version of the title of this post was considerably more incendiary than intended. I changed the title about 15 seconds after publishing this post, and I...
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Infringement Lawsuit Filed Over “The Shape of Water”
There used to be a time where the passing similarities between two works only interested academics and aficionados. Now it is grounds for claims of copyright infringement. The Hollywood...
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FairPlay Canada’s Proposed Website-Blocking System Faces Fierce Opposition
The data shows that blocking pirate sites causes more harm than good, but that hasn't stopped Canadian media companies from demanding that their government implement a website blacklist. A...
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Google Is Now Accepting Indie Authors into Play Books (Sometimes, And Only If You Ask Nice)
When Google closed its publisher portal two and a half years ago in response to massive ebook piracy, they said the move was temporary so they could "improve our content management...
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Offering Bitcoin Rewards for Turning in eBook Pirates, and Other Bad Ideas
Bitcoin and blockchain are the hot new buzzwords in tech, so much so that it is easy to find a double dozen startup using blockchains for the most ridiculous...
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Australian Courts Order Blocking of 59 Piracy Sites as Movie Distributor Readies Lawsuits Against Downloaders
Over the past couple decades record labels and movie studios have tried numerous ways to fight piracy, including suing downloaders (US, UK) and forcing ISPs to block websites (UK,...
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Textbook Publishers Now Fight Piracy With Seals of Approval
Publishers have been raising textbook prices for so many decades and have driven the price of textbooks so high that they have created a profitable opportunity for counterfeiters. There's serious...
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Piracy Cost American Book Publishers $315 Million in Lost Sales, Digimarc Claims
Anti-piracy firm Digimarc has taken a stab at defining the scale of the ebook piracy issue. They hired Nielsen to conduct a consumer survey on piracy, and found: E-book piracy...
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Textbook Publishers File Suit Against Amazon Marketplace Sellers for Alleged Piracy
Cengage, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson have started a new round of lawsuits against textbook sellers. The Financial Times reports that this time around the publishers are targeting defendants who sell through...
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19 Months Later, and Google Still Hasn’t Reopened Signups in Its Play Books Publishing Portal
It has been nineteen months since Google closed its book publisher portal in Google Play Books, and the larger blogosphere is just beginning to realize that it may never...
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