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Five major publishers have sued Shopify over the issue of piracy of learning materials, saying the e- commerce platform fails to remove listings and stores that violate the publishers' trademarks and copyrights. Statutory damages are claimed to be higher than $500 million in the lawsuit.
Pearson Education, Inc., Macmillan Learning, Cengage Learning, Inc., Elsevier Inc., and McGraw Hill are among the publishers who have suedshopify, claiming that it helps and profits from the online sale of copies of their books. The publishers say that Shopify has received detailed notices for years that identify listings selling pirate content and related store URLs, but has failed to block sellers from using the platform.
There are known repeat offenders.
According to the publishers,shopify continues to offer services like storefront building, web hosting, and payment processing to sellers who are known to list pirate content. The lawsuit alleges that Shopify furthers its business model by enabling known repeat infringers.
Harley Finkelstein has said that if the company sees storefronts that are violating a trademark, it will be removed. The publishers say that anyone looking at the storefronts, includingshopify, can see that they are selling copyrighted books.
The publishers say that the failure to control textbook pirates hurts their bottom line. The lawsuit claims that illegal digital copies of textbooks are sold at a fraction of the price of legitimate digital textbooks.
Textbook piracy is caused by the high prices of learning materials and the fact that publishers can maintain a stranglehold on the industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the cost of textbooks increased between 2006 and 2016 Critics say that ebooks don't fix affordability because access sometimes expires after a certain date, or they can't resell them to recoup costs.
A representative fromshopify said the company makes significant efforts to remove copyrighted works. Rebecca said that they have multiple teams that handle potential Acceptable Use Policy violations, including copyright and trademark infringement, and they don't hesitate to action stores when found in violation. Over 85% of trademark and copyright reports were reviewed within a day.
A statement from a Shopify spokesman was added to the December 1st edition.
