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<i>Decision of Note</i>: Second Circuit Rules on e-Book Sample in Digital Locker

By Stan Soocher
November 01, 2016

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided that an agreement between a book author and a publisher allowed a customer of distributor Barnes & Noble to retain a sample of the book in the “digital locker” the distributor provided to the customer. Smith v. BarnesandNoble.com LLC, 15-3508.

Louis K. Smith, author of a book titled The Hardscrabble Zone, entered into an agreement for Smashwords to publish an e-version of the book. Smith sued BarnesandNoble.com after he terminated his agreement with Smashwords. The copyright infringement suit complained about a licensed sample from Smith's book on one BarnesandNoble.com customer's digital locker. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York decided that BarnesandNoble.com wasn't liable for either direct or contributory copyright infringement.

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