Four leading US publishers have sued an online “shadow library” that allows visitors to download textbooks and other copyrighted materials free.
Cengage, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill and Pearson Education filed the suit against Library Genesis, also known as LibGen, in Manhattan federal court, citing “extensive violations” of copyright law.
LibGen operates a collection of different domains that allow users to search for and download pdf versions of books. The suit, filed on Thursday, said LibGen holds more than 20,000 files published by the four suing companies.
“LibGen’s massive infringement completely undermines the incentive for creation and the rights of authors, who earn no royalties for the millions of books LibGen illegally distributes,” Matt Oppenheim, the attorney representing the publishing companies, told the Guardian.
The publishers asked for an unspecified amount of money in damages and called for LibGen domain names to be deleted or transferred to the four companies. The complaint said that LibGen’s activities cause “serious financial and creative harm” because they devalue the textbook market and deprive publishers of income from textbook purchases, which may lead companies to stop publishing “deserving” titles that have low sales.
“This would adversely impact the creation of new works, scholarly endeavours and the availability of educational content in many disciplines”, read the suit.
Students are “bombarded” with messages “through social media and from their peers” to use LibGen sites instead of paying for textbooks during back-to-school season, according to the complaint. “All too many use LibGen, perhaps not realising the illegal nature of the sites,” it continued.
In recent months, artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI have been accused of training their models on copyrighted materials obtained through shadow libraries including LibGen.
LibGen is owned and operated by “unknown individuals”, stated the complaint, who are believed to reside outside the US. Those behind the sites conceal their identities, using pseudonyms such as “bookwarrior” and “librarian”. There is no contact information available on the LibGen sites.
The lawsuit also referenced a previous case brought against LibGen in Manhattan by Elsevier in 2017, in which the publisher was awarded $15m in damages and LibGen was ordered to transfer its domains to Elsevier. “Defendants are still operating LibGen today at new domains, continuing their blatant infringement,” stated the complaint.
