Library Genesis sued for 'staggering' copyright infringement
Library Genesis was sued by p ublishers Cengage Learning, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill, and Pearson Education for copyright infringement on a 'staggering' scale by 'illegally distributing' over 20,000 of their textbooks. The US lawsuit alleges that LibGen copied and distributed tens of thousands of their copyrighted works without authorisation, and claimed he scale of infringement is "staggering," with LibGen maintaining a collection of over 6 million files, including at least 20,000 works from the plaintiffs. The publishers also accuse LibGen of competing directly with them by offering free access to copyrighted materials, displacing legitimate sales, and seeks to shut down LibGen's operations and block its domain names. The suit also called out Google and 'other intermediaries' - specifically NameCheap for domain registration services, Cloudflare for proxy services, and Google for search engine services - for allegedly helping Libgen conduct its operations. Th e case highllights the tension betwee n copyright protection and the push for open access to academic knowledge , and could have significant consequences for the future of LibGen and potentially impact the broader landscape of open access to academic literature. System 🤖 Library Genesis Operator: Library Genesis Developer: Library Genesis Country: USA Sector: Education Purpose: Provide content access Technology: Database/dataset Issue: Accountability; Copyright; Transparency Legal , regulat ory 👩🏼⚖️ Cengage Learning, Inc. v. Does 1 - 50
- Date it happened
- 2023-09-01
- Organisation involved
- Library Genesis
- Product, system or model
- Library Genesis
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