An online Ukraine-based bookstore is being sued by Amazon, Penguin Random House, and several best-selling authors for selling pirated eBooks according to the plaintiffs.
Amazon and co. filed the lawsuit in federal court in Seattle and allege the Ukraine-based websites such as Kissly.net, Libly.ney and Cheap-Library.com operate under KISS Library and are illegally downloading and distributing eBooks at discounted prices. The audience that is targeted is uninformed U.S. readers.
That means that the authors of the eBooks aren’t getting any of the profit made by the sales of their books. Sylvia Day, John Grisham, and Scott Turow are some of the authors affected by this.
“Unlike authorized sites that pay for the books they sell, KISS Library keeps all the proceeds that it illegally obtains from American readers,” said Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Authors Guild. “Not a single penny goes to the authors or publishers that produce the books.”
Illegally downloading and disturbing eBooks hurts authors that rely on sales from their sales for income. Most authors don’t rake in millions of dollars from sales. So please try to buy books from websites that ensure the author gets a part of the sale.
Seattle Times tried to contact KISS Library but were not able to get in touch.