The FBI has filed suit against Database Engineers Inc. out of Tampa, FL, for posting copyrighted materials online without the permission of the authors or publishers of said materials. Database Engineers Inc. is actually one man, Gregory Steven Hart, who ran six websites that contained scans of whole comic books and magazines, which visitors could read for free. The FBI filed suit against six of these sites, including HTMLcomics.com and ComicBooksFree.com.
According to sources, Marvel Comics contacted Hart in 2009 and asked him to remove copyrighted content. Hart informed Marvel's attorneys that he designed the websites and though he didn't own the comics being displayed, he received scans from users. Hart then told Marvel's lawyers that if they did not agree to a revenue-sharing plan, he would continue running the websites and allow visitors access to the comic books for free. The details of the suit are not exactly clear (to me), but that sounds like blackmail; I do not know that it is, nor that anything like that is even mentioned in the suit (much less the basis), but that is what it sounds like to me.
Hart's websites were no longer accessible as of last Friday (May 28th, 2010), and calls to the phone number listed for Database Engineers Inc. went unanswered.
© C Harris Lynn, 2010
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