Arrest Warrant issued for Defendant in Copyright Infringement Case

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  Mark Kuyper, 480-966-3998 ext.210, mkuyper@ecpa.org

Phoenix, Arizona— The High Court in London has issued a Bench Warrant for Andrew Amue’s arrest for failing to appear at the hearing to enforce a March 2008 Order requiring him to cease copyright infringement on hundreds of copyrighted Christian works. 

On behalf of a coalition of its member publishers, the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) had 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 the 2008 Court Order requiring that he 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.   He has now failed to appear at the hearing and the presiding Judge issued an order for his arrest.  Mr. Amue is thought to now be operating under a fictitious name.

“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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