British Publishers Win Suit Against eBook Pirates

By Dianna Dilworth 

A group of publishers in the UK have won a lawsuit against several overseas pirate websites that distribute eBooks for free in the UK without paying a royalty to the publishers or authors.

A ruling by the High Court in London determined that the sites violated the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The ruling requires British internet service providers (ISPs) including BT, Virgin Media and Sky to block access to the sites named in the complaint within 10 days.

The sites include: Ebookee, LibGen, AvaxHome, Freebookspot, Freshwap, Bookfi and Bookre. According to the Publishers Association UK, these sites host about “10,000,000 ebook titles and have been making substantial sums of money, primarily through referral fees and advertising. None of this money has been going back to either the publisher or the author(s) of the works.” (Via The Financial Times).