Major Publishers Sue Hotfile For Copyright Infringement

Several major book publishers have filed a complaint with a Florida District Court, and are pursuing up to $7.5 million in damages from the now defunct file-sharing website, Hotfile.

Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, John Wiley and Sons, Elsevier and McGraw-Hill filed the complaint, accusing Hotfile of copyright infringement.

A spokesman for the publishers stated, “Hotfile built a business off of infringement. The book publishers’ rights were massively infringed by the site and its operators. They should not be allowed to simply pocket their profits and walk away from the harm they caused.”

50 books have been submitted as evidence and if found guilty, Hotfile could face up to $7.5 million in damages.

Just last month the file-sharing site ended its legal battle with the MPAA in a $80 million settlement which leaves many questioning if Hotfile has the funds to settle this complaint.

“Hotfile failed to ban with any consistency repeat infringers who accounted for a large percentage of the infringing files on the system. Despite receiving millions of DMCA notices, Hotfile did not track whether any of the uploads came from the same user,” the publishers note.

Due to Hotfile’s negligent policies, a group of persistent infringers were able to upload millions of files. The total amount of files equaled 44 percent of the files on Hotfile, according to the publishers.

Here at DMCA Force, we encourage both self-published authors and major publishers to contact us so we can work together in combating online piracy. We offer an in depth, complimentary evaluation which features where your work is being pirated along with the different solutions and tools we have available to help put an end to digital piracy.