The Copyright Clearance Center has gone four for four in out-of-court settlements with copy shops it has charged with copyright infringement. The CCC brought its first lawsuit last October and filed its fourth and latest suit in July.
One of the two most recent settlements concerns a suit brought in February by John Wiley & Sons, the MIT Press, Sage Publications and the University of Chicago Press against Paradigm Books Inc. in Austin, Tex., Paradigm Course Resource Inc. of Minneapolis, Minn., and Paradigm president and owner Robert Pyeatt. In the other, HarperCollins, Wiley, Pearson Education, Princeton University Press and Sage accused Collegiate Copies of Bloomington, Ind., and its owners, John E. Seeber and Thomas Seeber, of systematic reproduction of materials without seeking permission. In both cases, the copy shops agreed to pay an undisclosed amount in damages and to pay reuse royalties through the CCC, which coordinated the lawsuits.
CCC brought the suits to send a message to copy shops that it remains committed to fighting unauthorized copying. "Infringement hurts authors, creators and the publishing industry by depriving them of the remuneration to which they are entitled," said Bob Weiner, v-p of licensing and rights-holder relations.
