The classic way to get around copyright and libel is to have a senator read it into the senate proceedings. Senators are immune from libel while on the floor under the Speech and Debate clause, and the government helpfully publishes the proceedings. It's better than scanning and bit torrent since it makes the US Congress complicit in the publishing.

The reason KinderUSA dropped the lawsuit is that Yale Press fought back, they counter sued in California where they have anti-SLAPP laws where the loser has to pay all the attorney fee's of the defendant if they lose. http://www.nysun.com/article/60635 This is where I saw the story about them dropping the law suit. They had a very weak case and would have lost in California.

Just as efficient, the congresscritter can speak for a minute or two and then ask to insert "extended remarks." Then he can insert a ton of written material.

Of course, either judiciary committee could also hold a hearing on suppression of free speech by suits of this type, and then reprint the book as part of the hearings.

FWIW, the University of Chicago (my Blessed Alma Mater) reports on its libraries website that it owns a copy (currently checked out; may be recalled) and I'm guessing that any number of other research libraries will have it available.

Lets get a copy of this puppy and type it up...once its in digital format...they will be toast and will be around the world in 80 seconds.

...ahh my blessed alma mater too David, I imagine someone will get it on demonoid.com or isohunt.com...at some point...

The E-book is available for the moment at

http://booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=138023

or http://tinyurl.com/37mb65

It's in the Mobipocket format, which is a relatively strong DRO encryption scheme. Once you download a copy it will only play on that particular machine - laptop, PDA, whatever. You can't print it, and you can only copy and paste about 12 words at a time.

Some of us are working on doing screen grabs and OCRing the entire book. There's a parallel effort to convert it using this method:

http://tinyurl.com/2nllor

Hopefully one or the other will be done in a week or so. We invite anyone interested to duplicate our work - this is the first time we've tried to do this, and we may fail. The more people trying the better.

The encrypted file with text and a few illustrations is only 750k, so it will be easy to pass around as an email attachment.

We will also have a copy of the physical book next month. We will take a digital photograph of each page and stitch them together like the leaked Harry Potter book. Hopefully one of the other two methods will work, and the photos will only be an archive.

Anyone who is interested in participating is invited to join us at the "Alms For Jihad Fan Club" - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/almsforjihad/

Having it inserted in the Congressional Record is pure genius. Does anyone have a congresscritter with guts enough to do it?

I doubt KinderUSA was concerned about the financial implications of the anti-SLAPP suit. There's no end of oil wealth available "for the children," as long as it's in aid of martyrdom.

I'd wager what made them fold was the prospect of legal discovery. Not a situation you want to be in unless you're squeaky clean.

While it's tempting to say that a copyright owner that doesn't publish their work is abandoning rights to that work, the fact is that once you own intellectual property, it's yours to do pretty much as you wish with it and there's no legal obligation to commercially exploit that property.

That being said, I wish someone would indeed violate Cambridge Univ. Press' copyright and put Alms For Jihad online for free just to see what Cambridge would do. If they sued, the publicity about them spiking the book due to the lawsuit would not be favorable.

If it is put online - how is Cambridge damaged? Sure, the can get an injuction to stop one individual from distributing e-copies of the book, but how could they get compensation when they haven't been impacted?

It doesn't affect their future book sales, they'd already agreed they wouldn't sell any more. It doesn't make the asset less valuable to a future owner, they agreed to never sell the rights.

I aint no lawyer, but I think to get damages you have to show you've been damaged.

I've got a copy of the book (I think) from one of the sites you linked above. I don't, however, have the equipment to read it. (It requires a "mobipocket reader" whatever that is, and a PalmOS®, Windows® CE/ PocketPC® or Symbian™ handheld device, or a Franklin BOOKMAN® 1450 or 1850 series (none of which I have).

Any ideas?

Once the Mobipocket website is done with their maintenance and is open again, you can download a free copy of the Mobipocket reader from them.

The e-book was available at booksonboard.com yesterday, but it doesn't offer a "buy" button anymore.

What used to be standard in book publishing was that if the volume went out of print and the publisher declined to republish, rights reverted to the author. These days, with digital rights and on-demand printing, publishers can easily keep something "in print" forever, no reversion. Obviously it would depend on the particular contract, but I wonder what happens to the publication rights in a case like this.

A couple of things -

There's a comment on the Canadian Amazon listing for the book claiming that they've scanned all the pages in India, and are going to republish it there.

At Books on Board, where I got my e-copy, there's a notice:

URGENT: PLEASE READ...

For our Mobipocket readers only - Mobipocket format books cannot be downloaded at present. Mobipocket.com, our partner for this format, is down.

Our other three ebook formats and our audiobooks ARE WORKING the way they should.

Our paperbacks, hardcovers, DVDs and CDs are also NOT affected by this problem

The servers and website of our partner Mobipocket, a subsidiary of Amazon, went down Wednesday night, at approximately 8 p.m. CDT (US). As of 3:35 p.m. Central Daylight Time (US), Saturday, 18 August, Amazon's Mobipocket.com site is still down, now in its 68th hour of "maintenance." We are monitoring this round the clock.

Amazon tells us it are working hard to correct this. It has not disclosed the root of the difficulty nor has it yet provided an ETA for the solution. (In all the years that Mobipocket has been delivering ebooks, this is, as far as we can recall, the only incident of this magnitude.)

Currently, PIDs cannot be set up and Mobipocket format books cannot be downloaded because they are hosted by the Mobipocket server. Please look to here for updates.
---------
The Mobipocket failure seems awfully convenient. They started advertising with Google keywords that you could get the book through them on Monday, and on Wednesday they're knocked off the net completely.

IANAL, but if the book is not going to be sold to anyone else in the world, how would pirating it cost the publisher anything?

How could they prove damages? Does that mean you could do it and they could only sue you for $1, or is there some other rule that allows copyright holders to use the copyright to squelch a work completely?

From correspondence with Books on Board, the E-book version was removed last Monday. Trying to get further copies via Mobipocket, even when they're back up and running, is a dead end.

Eric: Without going into the specifics of any particular case mentioned above, just what is a person, libeled in a book, supposed to do? Suck it up and take it like a man?

Libel laws--whether restrictive as in the US or liberal as in the UK--serve to protect reputations.

In the particulars of the 'Alms' book, Bin Mafouz believe he was libeled. He sued in the court that that he believed would serve him best. That, to my knowledge, is not nefarious behavior, but rather smart. The fact that Cambridge U. apologized unreservedly must count for something. They said:

Whilst the allegations were originally published in good faith, Cambridge University Press now recognises that the information upon which they were based was wrong. Cambridge University Press accepts that there is no truth whatsoever in these serious allegations.

Cambridge University Press accepts that the entire Bin Mahfouz family categorically and unreservedly condemns terrorism in all its manifestations, and that at no time has any member of the family contributed to any terrorist organisation, nor has the family ever had reason to believe that funds it has given over the years to a wide variety of charities, including the Muwafaq Foundation, have been used other than for the charitable purposes intended.

Cambridge University Press has given its sincere apologies to Sheikh Khalid and his family for the distress and embarrassment caused, and has undertaken not to publish those allegations or any similar allegations in the future.

His other suits--excepting that involving Ehrenfeld, who didn't bother to mount a defense--have resulted in other apologies and admissions that allegations made in print could not be substantiated. (See my post On Libel, Truth, and Paranoia at Crossroads Arabia.)

Is truth, even if it goes against the zeitgeist, not a proper defense against libel?

There is a very good case to be made that the US, starting with our courts, needs to have a serious discussion about how far a judgment of a foreign court can reach into the US. One of the bases of that discussion must be the reach of US courts abroad. Right now, the US is asserting a pretty long reach for itself. (See Alien Torts Act and various state and local ordinances seeking to impose US laws on foreign actors.)

I'd like to see serious discussion about the topic, but not discussion which starts from the premise that if it involves a Muslim banker, it must be terrorism.

These are all interesting comments, especially the stuff about how to get the book. As to the libel case, I don't know the details, but I find it hard to believe the entire book was wrong, especially considering the authors' distinguished backgrounds.

What galls me is that I can't read it.

I wrote this post because I WANT TO READ IT, and I don't want some Saudi sheik telling me I can't. (Whether he's a terrorist or not.)

I've got a good quality scan (in PDF) of the whole book. Now where to host it?

Keep me posted. I'll be glad to link it. Or even upload it here if I can get away with it.