Shopify sued by publishers
The Canadian Press – Dec 1 2021 / 2:53 p.m. | History: 353360
Photo: The Canadian Press
The Ottawa headquarters of Canadian e-commerce company Shopify is pictured on May 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS / Justin Tang
Several textbook publishers accuse Shopify Inc. of profiting from content sold through Shopify’s software that is pirated or infringes their trademarks.
The publishers say in a lawsuit filed in U.S. court that the e-commerce company allows multiple websites using its technology to illegally reproduce and sell identical or “substantially impossible” textbooks, test banks and other textbooks. to distinguish ”from their products.
They say Shopify has received detailed reviews virtually every week for years identifying specific entities using the company’s services for hacking, but consistently ignores the activity because of the profits it generates.
The publishers are seeking damages of up to $ 150,000 per copyright infringement and $ 2 million per trademark infringement, resulting from alleged violations by Shopify.
The five publishers bringing the charges against the tech company are Macmillan Learning, Cengage Learning Inc., Elsevier Inc., McGraw Hill LLC and Pearson Education Inc.
While Shopify is based in Ottawa, the publishers filed their complaint in Virginia, where the company has computer servers.
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