ECPA Resolves Copyright Infringement Case
(Press Release) Phoenix, Arizona, November 1, 2010—Last week, the High Court of Justice in London issued a Consent Order under which Andrew (Amue) Ansell admitted to infringing a large quantity of Christian theological works by displaying them on his websites, including biblecentre.net, and agreed not to post any copyrighted material in the future. This resolves a nearly seven-year legal battle that ECPA and its publisher coalition, represented by US attorney Brian Flagler and UK attorney Martyn Bailey, have fought in the UK judicial system.
In addition, Amue/Ansell submitted a written apology for his actions, acknowledging that he was in violation of the law and Christian principles. Copyrighted works have been deleted from his servers and ECPA has submitted to him a letter informing him of future steps that would be taken should he infringe other materials published by any ECPA member.
In 2003, ECPA became aware 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. 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.
Mr. Amue first offered free access to the texts, then started charging a subscription fee and expanded the offerings on new websites at www.evanglibrary.info and www.evanglibrary.com. ECPA repeatedly asked Mr. Amue to cease infringing copyright in the works in numerous letters and emails over a period of over four years during which legal counsel was secured in 2006. Mr. Amue continually refused to either secure the necessary licenses or to permanently remove the works from his websites. In May of this year, the High Court in London issued a Bench Warrant for Andrew Amue's arrest, for failing to appear at the hearing to enforce a March 2008 Order. Since recently, Mr. Amue had hid from authorities, and eventually changed his name to Andrew Ansell.
