Library.nu redirects to Google Books, now...

the next web "Two websites that made thousands of eBooks available illegally as free downloads have been forced offline after being served cease-and-desist orders from a global alliance of publishers." by Paul Sawers

'As the Association of American Publishers (AAP) reports, the operators of library.nu and ifile.it were served with court orders in Ireland, where they are located, and the outcome has taken more than seven months to come to fruition.

'The piracy operation was thought to turn over more than £7m each year through advertising, premium-level accounts and user-donations. Library.nu acquired more than 400,000 copyrighted eBooks, and made them available for free on a site masquerading as a legitimate provider, and the same operators also ran the affiliated fileshare hosting service at ifile.it, which facilitated the uploads.

'“While this action is a significant step in shutting down two major rogue websites stealing content from publishers and others, it also captures the enormous investment of time and cost required for rights-holders to protect their work,” said Tom Allen, President and CEO, AAP. “For every rogue site that is taken down, there are hundreds more demanding similar effort. I can’t think of a more timely example of the need for additional tools to expedite such action.”

'The alliance included HarperCollins, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, Pearson Education Ltd, Macmillan Publishers, John Wiley & Sons and the McGraw-Hill Companies, and was overseen by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Börsenverein) and the International Publishers Association (IPA).'