Major Book Publisher Files Mass-BitTorrent Lawsuit

John Wiley and Sons, one of the world’s largest book publishers, have sued 27 BitTorrent users at a federal court in New York. The publisher claims that the defendants have shared copies of its “For Dummies” books without permission, and demands compensation. After several movie studios started filing lawsuits against BitTorrent users last year, Wiley is the first book publisher to take this kind of action.

Since early 2010 more than 200,000 people have been sued in the U.S. for sharing copyrighted works via BitTorrent. Thus far these lawsuits have been the exclusive territory of independent and adult film studios, but today they are joined by one of the world’s largest book publishers.
John Wiley and Sons have sued 27 Does at a federal court in New York for downloading and sharing copies of its “For Dummies” books using BitTorrent. The complaint (pdf), obtained by TorrentFreak, shows that all defendants allegedly shared the books on October 18 and 19 of this year.
Wiley argues that through the massive piracy that occurs on BitTorrent, their company is suffering severe losses that might cost several authors their jobs.
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