A New York man and woman have been ordered by a court to pay $7,000 in damages for downloading an eBook from the “For Dummies” series via BitTorrent. Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain of New York ruled in absentia against the couple, convicting them of copyright and trademark infringement of major e-book publisher John Wiley & Sons.
The story began earlier in 2011, when John Wiley & Sons became the first book publisher to start going after BitTorrent users in the US.
In the months that followed, Mr. Wiley filed a slew of lawsuits against BitTorrent users. The charges involved the sharing of digital copies of titles such as “Hacking for Dummies,” “Wordpress for Dummies” and “Cooking Basics for Dummies.”
Mr. Wiley's lawyer told TorrentFreak that they intend to settle all cases with the alleged infringers for an undisclosed amount. However, the book publisher recently requested a retrial of the cases that had been tried, and the verdict did not satisfy him.
One of them includes the defendants who were sentenced in absentia yesterday by New York Federal Judge Laura Taylor Swain.
Tammy Roberts of Clifton Springs, New York, was convicted of sharing “Photoshop CS5 All-In-One For Dummies” and Fred Burgos of Brooklyn, New York, was convicted of sharing “Herb Gardening For Dummies” with BitTorrent. Both will have to pay a total of $7,000 in restitution, the amount sought by Wiley.
Interestingly, Wiley accused BitTorrent users of both copyright and trademark infringement. The $5,000 will be awarded for copyright infringement, while the $2,000 will be awarded for trademark infringement.
According to Wiley's complaint, the author is concerned that pirated copies could damage his "For Dummies" trademark, since they may be of inferior quality or linked to viruses.
