CONTACT:
Mark Kuyper, President/CEO, ECPA
480-966-3998 ext. 210, mkuyper@ecpa.org

On behalf of a coalition of its member publishers, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) has asked the High Court in London, England to hold Andrew Amue, the founder of the www.evanglibrary.info and www.evanglibrary.com websites, in contempt of court for his repeated refusal to comply with a 2008 Court Order which requires Mr. Amue to cease display of over 130 works on his sites without permission.

ECPA first became aware more than six years ago of Mr. Amue’s site at www.biblecentre.net, which featured a collection of the full texts of hundreds of copyrighted Christian theological works displayed without permission. Mr Amue first offered free access to the texts, then started charging a subscription fee. ECPA organized a coalition of its member publishers, comprised of Thomas Nelson, Zondervan, Baker Publishing Group, Tyndale, Moody, Logos Software, and IVP UK, to address the infringement.

ECPA repeatedly asked Mr. Amue to cease infringing copyright in the works in numerous letters and emails over a period of over four years. Mr Amue refused to either secure the necessary licenses or to remove the works from his websites.

In March 2008, the ECPA coalition secured an Order from the High Court in London requiring Mr. Amue to cease the infringement. The publishers were unable to serve the Order on Mr. Amue for over a year as he moved residences and changed his name, apparently in an attempt to avoid being served. According to the process server that finally served him in June of this year, Mr. Amue promised at that time, “I am not going to do it anymore.” However, his recalcitrance returned the next day when he claimed in an email that he no longer controlled the sites and therefore could not be held responsible for their content. Mr. Amue had made a similar claim in 2003 when first approached by counsel for ECPA, arguing that the “copyright[ed] material that is on the website…is not on our server, and therefore does not become our responsibility…”

After ECPA secured forensic evidence that Mr. Amue continues to operate the infringing sites, ECPA and the publisher coalition determined that they had no choice but to ask the Court to enforce the Order. Shortly before making the application, ECPA’s London counsel provided Mr. Amue with one last opportunity to cease the infringement. Mr. Amue acknowledged that he was still working on the site and claimed that the sites would not comply with copyright laws, laws that he implies are “ungodly, and anti-Christian, and against the Holy Bible.”

“After numerous and extraordinary efforts to stop Mr. Amue from illegally using and selling copyrighted materials from many authors and several publishers, including Zondervan, we had no choice but to collectively ask the Court to back its previous order,” said Stan Gundry, Zondervan Executive Vice President and Editor-in-Chief. “Mr. Amue asserts that he believes the copyright laws are, in his words, ’un-Christian.’  In reality, he is stealing the works of others. Originally he gave this copyrighted content away. For most of the past six years, he charged customers for the stolen material. The facts speak for themselves.”

ECPA President and CEO Mark Kuyper explains, “Given the increased movement toward the digital distribution of intellectual property, it is more important than ever to affirm the boundaries of the law. As good stewards of their authors’ copyrights, these publishers are fulfilling their responsibility to address blatant and continued infringement.”

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The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) is an international non-profit trade organization, comprised of nearly 200 member companies worldwide, representing a combined revenue of nearly $2 billion. Founded in 1974, ECPA is dedicated to serving the Christian publishing industry through equipping its members through cutting-edge technology, meaningful data, dynamic educational opportunities and unprecedented access to markets.
For more information about ECPA: 480-966-3998, 9633 South 48th Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85044, info@ecpa.org  www.ecpa.org.