Lawsuit against website settled

Last Modified: 04 Oct 2008
Source: PA News

The magazine industry has settled its copyright-infringement lawsuit against the operators of a fledgling website that encourages people to copy and upload current issues.

Terms were not disclosed.

US District Judge William Pauley in New York approved the settlement on September 9 and it remained unnoticed until a story appeared this week on the website of Folio magazine.

Leading magazine publishers including Time Warner's Time Inc, Hearst Corporation, Advance Magazine Publishers, Forbes and The McGraw-Hill Companies sued Mygazines.com in August, claiming it engaged in false advertising and trademark breaches as well as copyright infringement.

Legal experts considered Mygazines.com - which once sported high-quality digital copies of dozens of current titles that visitors could read for free - a flagrant breach of copyright laws.

But they believed it would be difficult to shut down because it is run by an offshore company of specious origin.

But the publishers said they traced the site to a Toronto resident, based on ownership records of the domain name and US and Canadian filings for the Mygazines trademark.

The site was still working on Friday, though it contained mostly foreign and obscure magazines and an Ikea catalogue.

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