Section 97A - now it's ebooks

It has been reported that yesterday (in a decision that does not yet appear to be published) the High Court issued a further set of orders under section 97A of the CDPA on the application of a group of book publishers represented by the Publishers Association (with support from the Association of American Publishers)

According to the Publishers' press release  the 7 web sites between them claim to hold around 10 million ebook titles between them.  They had been the recipients of over a million take down requests (and Google had received over 1.75 million take down requests for URLs on the offending sites).

The names of the site are  listed on the press release and the 5 major ISPs against whom the orders have been made have 10 working days to block access [This blog has chosen not to repeat the list of sites as it doesn't seem appropriate to promote the sites readers both in the UK and beyond - and indeed some of those with aggressive interpretations of Svennson  and BestWater might consider that simply listing the sites constitutes communication to the public!]

A clearly very happy Chief Executive of the PA, Richard Mollet is quoted as saying:

“A third of publisher revenues now come from digital sales but unfortunately this rise in the digital market has brought with it a growth in online infringement. Our members need to be able to protect their authors’ works from such illegal activity; writers need to be paid and publishers need to be able to continue to innovate and invest in new talent and material.

“We are very pleased that the High Court has granted this order and, in doing so, recognises the damage being inflicted on UK publishers and authors by these infringing websites.”

Section 97A has now been used in respect of movies, music, live TV and eBooks - we await with interest the next sector to bring the weapon into their armoury against infringers.