Library.nu and Ifile.it Shut Down

Ralph Spoilsport writes "A coalition of 17 publishing companies has shut down library.nu and ifile.it, charging them with pirating ebooks. This comes less than a month after megaupload was shut down, and SOPA was stopped. If the busting of cyberlockers continues at this pace and online library sharing dismantled, this under-reported story may well be the tip of a very big iceberg — one quite beyond the P&L sheets of publishers and striking at basic human rights as outlined in the contradictions of the UN Charter. Is this a big deal — a grim coalition of corporate power? Or just mopping up some scurvy old pirates? Or somewhere in between?" Adds new submitter roaryk, "According to the complaint, the sites offered users access to 400,000 e-books and made more than $11 million in revenue in the process. The admins, Fidel Nunez and Irina Ivanova, have been tracked down using their PayPal donation account, which was not anonymous. Despite the claims of the industry the site admins say they were barely able to cover the server costs with the revenue."

sooner or later

[Moheeheeko]

Seem like a matter of time before others join in on all the "fun". Encyclopedia Britannica sues to have Wikipedia taken down could be a future headline IMO.

Public lending right

[langelgjm]

Actually, in many countries authors are already compensated for the lending of their books in public libraries by a public lending right [wikipedia.org]. Although not in the U.S... I suspect if publishers tried to pull that here, they'd get some seriously negative PR.

Re:MegaUpload bust was highly successful

[Anonymous Coward]

MegaUpload and similar sites were used by general population, and outright made money from copyright theft. It was very similar to selling warez on streets, they just tried to hide it behind "clever" subscription models and affiliate programs. Yes, serious pirates will always be able to get their files, but when the circle is small enough companies don't care. They care about what most of population does, and they can easily make it harder and inconvenient enough for general population.

You have no idea what you are talking about. We make money showing ads that non-premium members see on the "landing pages" for file downloads. Good job spouting your uninformed bullshit though. You should look at http://sibsoft.net/xfilesharing.html - that's the script 99% of us use to setup and operate file sharing sites. The ads-on-landing-pages model is already there, just plug, play, and profit.

PS: die in a fire

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