Remember that web site that actively encouraged visitors to upload entire contents of magazines? It was obviously a blatant violator of copyright law, but it was an offshore operation with false Whois information and thus considered outside the reach of the law. But leading magazine publishers and the Magazine Publishers of America traced the site to a resident of Toronto, filed suit and reached a settlement (apparently very quickly, the settlement was approved Sept. 9 but news only got out today in an amazing story by Folio Magazine’s Dylan Stableford).

I’ll let you get the juicy details from Dylan’s story. I’ll just add that it’s nice to see copyright law actually work, and work quickly, in a digital infringement case, in particular one that is cross-border. I’d also add that it is not surprising that the person claiming to be the site founder told Dylan that he hoped to monetize the site in partnership with copyright owners. Create infringing model first, get sued then ask for partnership later. Seen that too many times.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under copyright law, international, internet, piracy, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.