Intellectual Property Infringement for Dummies

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United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Laura Taylor Swain this week in John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v.  Carina Bowers et al. (Case No. 12-civ.-0540-LTS) entered a default judgment and granted a permanent injunction against two individuals who downloaded ebooks on Biztorrent.

According to a post on the Torrentfreak.com blog, the defendants were assessed $7,000 in damages apiece for copyright and trademark infringement for downloading the plaintiff's "For Dummies" books, specifically, Photoshop CS5 All-in-One for Dummies and Herb Gardening for Dummies.

John Wiley & Sons aggressively is pursuing alleged infringers, having filed more than a dozen Biztorrent-related lawsuits against multiple defendants since 2012. Hacking for Dummies and Cooking Basics for Dummies are among other ebook titles allegedly illegally downloaded.

Wily Reseller of Protected Works Has Supreme Court Reviewing Copyright Law

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The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Docket No. 11-697), a copyright infringement case concerning whether a legal, foreign-made copy of a protected work purchased abroad may be resold in the U.S. without the copyright holder's permission.

The High Court is expected to decide the case early next year, according to a report in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Resourceful USC Ph.D.candidate Supap Kirtsaeng urged family members in Thailand to send textbooks to him in the U.S. where he resold them for $900,000 on eBay and netted a considerable profit. Not so fast, said textbook publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., holder of the copyright on eight of the texts printed in Asia, which sued under 17 U.S.C. sec. 602(a)(1) of the Copyright Act, which bars importing a copyright work "without the authority of the owner." In response, Kirtsaeng's attorneys argue that sec. 109(a) of the Act enables the owner of a copy "lawfully made under this title" to sell or otherwise rid himself of the copy without the copyright holder's okey dokey.

The trial court was unpersuaded by Kirtsaeng's claim, holding that sec. 109(a) didn't cover products manufactured abroad, and awarded the publisher $600,000, but an appellate court panel was divided, though a majority backed the trial judge. The case came before the High Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied Kirtsaeng's motion for a rehearing.

The High Court's decision in the case, which implicates the century-old first-sale doctrine that enables a copyright holder only to benefit from the initial sale of his or her work, has ramifications for booksellers, online service providers, auctioneers, museums and libraries, according to the Tribune Review article.

Travel Gets Googlized

Image via CrunchBaseThe Wall St. Journal reported today that Frommer, a cadillac brand of travel guides, is being unloaded by publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc. to Google, Inc., the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine and owner of much of the universe, for an undisclosed sum.

Google has yet to determine whether to make Frommer an online-only presence or to continue to publish print versions of the travel guide, according to the Journal article.  Also under consideration is blending Frommer in with restaurant review maven Zagat Survey, LLC, which Google purchased in September 2011.

Copyright Infringement for Dummies

Image via WikipediaIn John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. John Does 1-27(Case No. 1:11-cv-07627), filed October 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the publisher of the popular "For Dummies" series has sued as-yet unidentified individuals who downloaded Wiley publications without permission.

As reported by www.PaidContent.org, Wiley, which has published more than 1,800 "For Dummies" titles in 31 languages, claims the pirated downloading of its Photoshop for Dummies alone, which sells for $20, has occurred more than 74,000 times since Summer 2010. The publisher, which has reportedly sold more than 200 million copies of its "For Dummies" volumes since 1991, has targeted anonymous New York residents as defendants based on IP addresses.

Looks as if "Defendants for Dummies" may not be far in the offing.