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23 January 2017Copyright

Penguin Random House sues author for copyright infringement

Publishers including Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster and the estates of US writers Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway have sued a US-based writer for copyright infringement.

The publishers and estates filed the lawsuit against Frederik Colting at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, January 19.

In the suit, the plaintiffs argued that Colting infringed the copyright of four “acclaimed copyright novels”: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, “The Old Man and The Sea”, “On the Road” and “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

They were written by Truman Capote, Hemingway, Kerouac and Arthur Clarke, respectively, and the copyright of the novels is owned by the plaintiffs.

Colting is the founder of Moppet Books along with Melissa Medina, who is also named as a defendant.

According to the suit, Colting capitalised on the novels’ “enduring fame” to reproduce children’s versions, which were sold on the defendants’ website and by third-party retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

In the suit, the publishers said that Colting announced the KinderGuides line of books in August last year.

The books are “unauthorised abridgements and adaptations” that recast the original novels into illustrated books for young children, according to the claim.

It added that the defendants call the infringing works “guides”, but the publishers argued that they “do not purport to be companion reference books or study guides for readers of the novels”.

The publishers asked for damages, statutory damages, profits, attorneys’ fees and further relief that the court shall seem just and proper.

Preliminary and permanent injunctive relief is also being sought, along with an order that the defendants recall any copies of the unauthorised KinderGuides and destroy them.

A spokesperson for Simon & Schuster told WIPR: "The KinderGuides are clearly derivative and plainly infringe on some of the most treasured and valued works of our time and in the instance of Ernest Hemingway’s "The Old Man and the Sea" is being published in direct contravention of long-held strategic considerations and decisions made by the Hemingway estate, the copyright holders, and in contravention of the-long held exclusive publishing rights of Scribner/Simon & Schuster.

They added that anyone with "even basic experience in publishing" would understand these works are in violation of copyright.

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