British publisher sues Amazon.com

Will Knight ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 22 Dec 1999 11:40 GMT

The owner of a small British publishing company has filed a lawsuit against Amazon.com, claiming that the online bookseller caused damage to his business by advertising his books without permission and also incorrectly showing them to be out of print.

The Toby Press, which is based in Liverpool and sells a small range of British and American fiction, only sells books via its own Web site and mail order service. Founder and managing director Mathew Miller says that by advertising Toby-published books and listing them as out of print, Amazon potentially damaged his own company's sales.

"I was never contacted by Amazon," says Miller. "They said the books were out of stock, and we never were, and have no intention of selling via Amazon."

All Toby Press published books have now been removed from the Amazon Web site.

Amazon.com was unavailable for comment.

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