In recent times, there has been a lot of buzz around online platforms such as Sci-Hub and Z-Library, which have raised concerns among publishers regarding copyright infringement. Just a few months down the line and we seem to have another organization having dubious records that major publishing companies like Cengage, Macmillan, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson have found fault with. No wonder, the publishing companies are taking measures to safeguard their rights, including investigating an alleged pirate e-book platform that goes by the name, Fenlita.com.
As a student found out earlier this year, the site is charging a flat $20 for all titles sold via its platform, which included even new titles as well. No wonder, this has aroused suspicion about the company that many feels couldn’t be legit after all. Nonetheless, as TorrentFreak reported, many seemed satisfied with what they got though one instance deserves special mention. For it took more than an hour to download a book which ultimately turned out to be 400 pages of screenshots of the book. What is worse though is that around 250 pages of the original book are still missing.
There have also been some concerns raised by customers regarding repeated charges to their credit cards and duplicate items showing up in their shopping carts. While there is no concrete evidence to support these claims, they are still being taken seriously. Additionally, a purchaser reported that a download link directed them to a website that appeared to be seized, which further roused suspicion.
Court filings suggest that Cengage, Macmillan, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson first submitted a complaint to domain registrar Namecheap on February 21, 2023. They followed up with an urgent request on March 2 after the website remained active. The publishers then requested Namecheap to take action, including disabling the fenlita.com domain. When their requests went unheeded, they went to court in Washington to seek a court order compelling Namecheap to disclose the personal information of the domain owner.
With a court ruling in its favor, Namecheap is required to disclose identifying information of individuals allegedly involved in infringing content as described in Exhibit A. That said, the publishers who requested the subpoena understand that obtaining such information may not always be helpful as domain owners can intentionally provide false information. Despite this possibility, the publishers remain committed to pursuing the matter.
According to information from Google’s Transparency Report, publishers sent several takedown notices to Google, requesting the removal of 12,113 URLs associated with fenlita.com since January 2023. However, a whopping 99.4 percent of these requests were unsuccessful because the URLs did not exist at the time of processing. WHOIS records indicate that fenlita.com was registered with Namecheap in October 2021 and currently uses Cloudflare, which obscures its server IP address. Nonetheless, it was possible to obtain an IP address of a server that Fenlita had used previously before Cloudflare began providing cover.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
