Over the weekend, all hell broke loose when Malcolm Turnbull’s new book A Bigger Picture hit shelves – but not before it had been illegally circulated to “millions” of people, resulting in a “massive breach of intellectual property” which has now been referred to the Australian Federal Police.
Hear all the spicy details on It’s Been A Big Day For…below:
Turnbull’s publisher Hardie Grant sent a cease and desist to one of Turnbull’s top aides on Saturday after it became apparent that a digital copy of the former PM’s book had been sent around before it was officially released today.
“What drew this to our attention was the distribution of the pirated edition from an address from within the PMO, sent to people who reported the illegal edition,” Hardie Grant chief executive Sandy Grant said in a statement.
“Piracy is a problem for bestselling books and our lawyers have taken immediate action to make it clear we intend to take action against the person seemingly distributing A Bigger Picture widely and illegally, as a well as any site sharing the file.”
Hardie Grant claimed the book had been illegally distributed to “millions” of people and a range of politicians admitted to receiving a copy, but many insisted they deleted it immediately.
According to the ABC, the staffer has since apologised for circulating Turnbull’s book, but the whole thing highlights the broader issue of piracy laws and common breaches of intellectual property.
Turnbull’s unreleased book may have been doing the rounds in parliament, but so are pirated films and TV shows on torrent websites, not to mention all the leaked music that seems to sneak its way onto social media. Let’s be honest – we all used LimeWire once or twice in the ‘00s before it gave our computers a virus.
All the drama surrounding the release of A Bigger Picture was almost enough to overshadow the contents of the book itself, but it contained just as much piping hot tea. Since the release of his memoir there has been a call to ban Malcolm Turnbull from the Liberal party for life, after extracts from the book state the former PM did not believe the Morrison-led coalition deserved to win the 2019 election.
Yikes.
Excuse me while I go make a cup of tea and get stuck into some non-pirated reading.
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