Hachette Hires Anti-Piracy Hammer

The following release was emailed by Hachette Book Group to literary agents and other publishing industry professionals this afternoon. It is a followup to a tough-talking release issued less than a month ago. We reprint it in its entirety. For information about Attributor, click here.

Last month we contacted you, Hachette Book Group authors and their agents, regarding our position on online book piracy. We’re pleased to announce that HBG has engaged Attributor, a leading anti-piracy protection service, to monitor the web for unauthorized copies of our authors’ titles. Please see announcement below for more details. If you have any questions, please email us at piracy@hbgusa.com.

* * *

June 17, 2009 – Hachette Book Group has engaged Attributor, a leading anti-piracy protection service, to monitor the web for instances of unlawful use of its authors’ books and content.

The rapid growth in digital availability of books has resulted in a dramatic increase in pirated editions on file sharing websites that allow users to upload, share and download content of all kinds, free of charge. While some of the content appearing on these sites is lawful and user-created, an alarming number of unauthorized copies of copyrighted book titles are uploaded and shared for free.

Attributor’s web-crawling tool checks document hosting sites, linksites, and social media and social networking sites, quickly identifying unauthorized copies. Attributor’s monitoring service will enable Hachette Book Group to proactively find unlawful uses of content and have infringing material taken down when necessary.

“Attributor is an essential resource in achieving HBG’s commitment to combating online book piracy and protecting our authors’ work,” said David Young, Chairman and CEO of Hachette Book Group. “With our lawyers and legal assistants spending a significant amount of time checking sites for pirated content, it was clear that we needed to automate and augment our monitoring, while keeping our staff very involved in the process. This automation will dramatically increase our reach and effectiveness.”