$7K Fine for Sharing “WordPress For Dummies” on BitTorrent

[HardOCP News]

Bad news: You've been fined $7,000 for sharing a "for Dummies" book on BitTorrent. The good news: The maximum fine was $150,000.

A New York federal court has ordered a rare default judgment in favor of John Wiley & Sons, one of the world’s largest book publishers. Robert Carpenter from Poughkeepsie, New York, has been ordered to pay the publisher $7,000 in damages for sharing a copy of “WordPress All-in-One For Dummies” on BitTorrent. According to Judge William Pauley, the man is guilty of both copyright and trademark infringement.

 

[Ashbringer]

That is the oddest reason to fight someone in court for. A book about Word Press, and a dummies book? Could have rented that at the library.

 

[Ur_Mom]

Site is blocked at work - was he the uploader or just downloaded and shared?

Expensive book.

 

[wgm3446]

And how much was the whole litigation process? OVER 9000!

 

[deadcrickets]

Default judgement means he didn't respond to the court. This isn't a precedent setting case due to that.

 

[SkribbelKat]

Does this mean we shouldn't expect a "BitTorrent for Dummies" or a "Avoiding Infringement Litigation for Dummies" anytime soon?

 

[DeathCloud]

Does this mean we shouldn't expect a "BitTorrent for Dummies" or a "Avoiding Infringement Litigation for Dummies" anytime soon?

I think there is already one out there called VPN for dummies(to lazy to look it up)

 

[wonderfield]

I've written a short book similar to "WordPress for Dummies", entitled "WordPress for Sensible Web Developers". Chapter 1 is entitled "Use Something Else", and is freely available.

There are no additional chapters.

 

[Arcygenical]

Shoulda read Bittorrent for dummies first.

 

[madmat]

http://www.amazon.com/BitTorrent-For-Dummies-Susannah-Gardner/dp/076459981X

Anyone else find it ironic that they publish a book on doing what the guy got fined for?

 

[Liger88]

Hell, with those kinds of fines who needs to sell books? Send out copies for others to pirate and then go after them one by one. You'll only need to win about a hundred times and you'll make more money than trying to sell hundreds of thousands of actual copies.

 

[SkribbelKat]

Hell, with those kinds of fines who needs to sell books? Send out copies for others to pirate and then go after them one by one. You'll only need to win about a hundred times and you'll make more money than trying to sell hundreds of thousands of actual copies.

With as little as a publisher passes back to the author these days, that's probably true. Though the publisher would be the one doing the suing since they basically OWN YOUR WORDS after they go forward with turning a manuscript into a book. >.<

 

[LeninGHOLA]

I've written a short book similar to "WordPress for Dummies", entitled "WordPress for Sensible Web Developers". Chapter 1 is entitled "Use Something Else", and is freely available.

There are no additional chapters.

Can you provide a torrent?

 

[sir-gold]

I just read the article and a few things jump out at me.

...New York federal court has ordered a rare default judgment...
"...entered a default judgement of $7,000 in damages against Robert Carpenter, who failed to respond to the allegations..."
"...when a defendant is unresponsive to the settlement offer..."

How do they know Robert Carpenter even knows about the lawsuit? He could be on vacation, or he could have moved somewhere else.

I can't believe that someone can sue you without your knowledge, and when you don't show up to defend yourself (because you don't know about it), they just automatically win.

Default judgments should not be allowed.