Amazon along with publisher Penguin Random House and several authors of the likes of Lee Child and John Grisham have been awarded damages amounting to $7.8 million against e-book pirates based in Ukraine, TorrentFreak reported. Specifically, charges were framed against Ukrainian nationals Rodion Vynnychenko and Artem Besshapochny who have been accused of selling pirated copies of popular e-books at cheap rates.
The accused sold the pirated copies via several sites which include Kissly.net, Wtffastspring.bid, Libly.net, and Cheap-Library.com. Broadly, they used the Kiss Library brand to further their illegal business. It however wasn’t easy cornering the two accused as they did all they could to evade scrutiny. Those included using false addresses and identities or other contact information. The lax legal system in Ukraine wasn’t of much help either.
Not surprisingly, none of the defendants had joined the court proceedings in the Washington court, with Vynnychenko not making it to the proceeding where he was expected to be present in person as per Ukrainian law. The duo however has been audacious enough to offer the pirated stuff to consumers based in Washington.
“Defendants advertised and distributed the copyrighted works at issue to Washington consumers in violation of the Copyright Act, duping consumers and interfering with the Author Plaintiffs’ licensing relationship with Plaintiff Amazon who suffered a loss of sales in Washington,” noted Judge Pechman.
With the defendants not joining the court proceedings made it easy for the judge to conclude both have been engaged in willful acts of deceit and discrepancy. This led to the court imposing damages to the tune of $7.8 million besides also issuing a permanent injunction against Kiss Library, Rodion Vynnychenko, Artem Besshapochny as well as agents or persons who have been part of the illegal act.
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