https://ift.tt/vaqh3x6 Justice Department unsealed an indictment on Wednesday charging two Russian citizens with operating one of the largest purveyors of pirated e-books on the internet.
Anton Napolsky, 33, and Valeriia Ermakova, 27, were arrested on November 3 in Cordoba, Argentina, at the request of the U.S. government, the Justice Department said in a statement.
The two were charged under seal in late October.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said the defendants are “not in U.S. custody,” declining to comment further.
The pair face charges of criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud and money laundering for running Z-Library, which billed itself as the “world’s largest library” and claimed to offer 11 million e-books for download.
The popular pirated-book platform went offline earlier this month around the time its operators were arrested in Argentina. In addition to its main homepage, Z-Library operated a network of nearly 250 websites. The Justice Department said those websites had been taken down and seized by the U.S. government.
Active since about 2009, Z-Library offered millions of titles, stripped of their copyright protections, and encouraged users to download and upload books, according to court documents. Often titles were uploaded to the site within hours of their publication, according to Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
The so-called “shadow library” allowed users to download a limited number of titles a day without creating an account. A “donation” of $1 or more enabled users to upgrade to “premium” status.
“As such, a central purpose of Z-Library is allowing users to download copyrighted books for free in violation of U.S. copyright law,” the criminal complaint said.
Undercover FBI agents investigating Z-Library requested and received via email books with their copyright protections removed, according to the criminal complaint.
The scheme has had a “devastating effect” on authors, publishers, authors’ estates, independent bookstores, large commercial bookstores and legitimate e-book sellers, the complaint says.
“By making millions of copyrighted works available online for free, while encouraging users to pay for enhanced Z-Library features, Z-Library has robbed individuals of the fruits of their labor — which, for some literary works, represents years or even decades of work — for Napolsky and Ermakova’s personal gain,” the complaint said.
In a statement, Michael Driscoll, the FBI assistant director in charge of the New York Field Office, said, “Intellectual property theft crimes deprive their victims of both ingenuity and hard-earned revenue.”
Author webdesk@voanews.com (Masood Farivar)
Source : VOA