Library.nu

Library.nu, previously called ebooksclub.org and gigapedia.com, was a popular linking website. It was accused of copyright infringement and shut down by court order on February 15, 2012. According to the takedown notice, it hosted some 400,000 ebooks and allegedly had a revenue of over $10 million. It was targeted by coordinated legal action from 17 publishers who obtained an injunction from a Munich court. The majority of the claimed infringing files were hosted on the iFile.it file hosting service, whose representatives however disclaimed a close relationship with Library.nu. In contrast, a representative of a private intellectual property agency hired by the book publishers stated that the "owners and directors of iFile.it" were the persons whose names appeared on the receipts of PayPal donations to Library.nu. According to Torrentfreak, "the legal team of the publishers estimated the revenue based on page impressions as well as estimated income from premium accounts, but this figure is laughable according to the iFile.it owner, which makes sense considering the site’s modest size." The iFile.it owner also told Torrentfreak that "they can barely cover the server costs with the revenue they make."

The URL "library.nu" was revoked by the .nu domain on 20 February 2012. Between the day of indictment and 24 February, library.nu redirected to Google Books. The URL gigapedia.com currently links to an article "The disappearing virtual library" by Christopher M. Kelty on aljazeera.com

According to an article posted in the British Sunday Times, investigators believed library.nu was operated by Irish nationals, possibly from Galway, through a server in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

The website (but not the database of ebooks) came back online 2 months later with an short message at http://library.nu/lnu.html claiming "most of the other articles in the media contain unhealthy amounts of speculation, and are not based on facts and reality."

See also

• Business aspects of academic publishing
  • Open access
  • Serials crisis
  • Textbook market
• Megaupload

Further reading

• Ernesto, "Book Publishers ‘Shut Down’ Library.nu and iFile-it", TorrentFreak, February 15, 2012
• Losowsky, Andrew, "Library.nu, Book Downloading Site, Targeted In Injunctions Requested By 17 Publishers", Huffington Post, February 16, 2012
• Wujastyk, Dominik, "Burning the Library of Alexandria, again", Cikitsā blog, Tuesday, February 28, 2012
• Kelty, Christopher M., "The disappearing virtual library", Al Jazeera, March 1, 2012