Sep 2 2008
more animals For a blogger, even one with a law degree, a letter with legal threats makes you sweat, particularly the first one. I received my first perceived legal threat from an author over a satirical blog piece I did. The email demanded an apology and retraction, the first steps to a defamation suit. I(…)
Aug 19 2008
Dear Ms. Laurie: I understand that you have had a lawyer send out a cease and desist and takedown letter to a romance blogger based on two things. First, you argue that the comments that the blogger excerpted from your own website (which you subsequently deleted but Google preserved for all time) are somehow unacceptable(…)
Jul 3 2008
On Tuesday, Barbara Bauer’s defamation suit against Wikipedia/Wikimedia was dismissed on the grounds that the CDA provided a safe harbor for websites that host content created by others. I thought that this would be the ruling “To date, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has begun to be interpreted fairly broadly to immunize websites(…)
Jul 2 2008
Several booksellers filed suit in May to challenge the newly passed Indiana legislation that would require every store that sold “sexually explicit” material to register with the Secretary of State and pay a fee. Because the term “sexually explicit” was so broad, the US District Court hearing the case ruled that the law was “too(…)
Jun 30 2008
Barbara Bauer, named one of the publishing industry’s 20 Worst Literary Agents, has sued over 19 bloggers and website administrators for allegedly defaming her. The New Jersey Star-Ledger has reported on it, in part because Bauer is a local resident. Wikipedia and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website have been named as well(…)
Jun 18 2008
Larry Townsend, a famous GLBT author of The Leatherman’s Handbook and its sequel, The Leatherman’s Handbook II, has sued a number of booksellers for infringing on his copyright by selling copies of his books. Townsend had originally been self publishing and self distributing until he made an agreement with Nazca Plains for distribution. Townsend and(…)
May 24 2008
Microsoft scanned in, digitized, and indexed 750,000 books and 80 million scholarly articles for its “Live Search” program which is similar to Google Booksearch. Microsoft decided to terminate the program and provide the digital copies of books scanned to the publishers. Microsoft will now rely on crawling the content repositories of other sites (I wonder(…)
May 23 2008
SB Sarah posted about the new antitrust lawsuit filed by publisher Booklocker against Amazon. Booklocker is asking for class action status. The suit alleges an unlawful tying arrangement between Amazon’s bookstore and Amazon’s printing arm (Booksurge). We discussed a tying suit briefly in the comments when the news of Amazon’s requirement to use its POD(…)
May 13 2008
Millenia Black announced that the settlement of her suit with Penguin over the allegations that Penguin tried to make her write black characters. As a part of the settlement, Black had to purge every reference to the suit from her site as well as refrain from any future discussion. Oddly, some people deem this as(…)
May 12 2008
In an act that will endear authors to Indiana in spite of its recent “sex registry for booksellers” law, the Indiana Attorney General is suing publisher, Airleaf aka Bookman Marketing, for accepting payment of authors and not delivering the promised services from publication to promotional services. The owner is Carl Lau and it looks like(…)
Apr 16 2008
According to Publishers’ Marketplace, Judge Robert Patterson, Jr., is urging RDR and Rowling to settle. Patterson said, “The fair-use people are on one side, and a large company is on the other side…The parties ought to see if there’s not a way to work this out, because there are strong issues in this case and(…)
Apr 7 2008
Hat tip to SB Sarah who has the scoop. According to the petition, Christina Brashears is a 5% shareholder of Ellora’s Cave beginning in July of 2003. September In 2005, Brashears was terminated from her position as Director, Chief Operating Office and Publisher. Her main claims are as follows: She is entitled to a buyout(…)
Mar 14 2008
If I was an author, I would probably want to get my hands on this arbitration decision1. Regnery was in litigation with author Richard Miniter. He had a two book contract with Regnery and delivered a book called Disinformation. Regnery believed that the book “did not live up to [Miniter's] two book contract”. Instead, Miniter(…)
Mar 10 2008
I don’t know that I’ve seen criminal cases moved through the court system as fast as the JK Rowling case. The petition was filed in October and is set for trial at the end of March. Initially oral argument1 was to be held on the preliminary injunction motion on March 13 but now the Court(…)
Mar 4 2008
On the SBTB site, Laura Kinsale asked the question “I’m curious. What’s the difference between Cassie Edwards writing about ferrets and fan fiction published for profit?” Robin’s response was “the fact that fan fiction, by its very nature, has overt attribution.” My response was The difference, ethically (and in general), between fan fiction and plagiarism,(…)
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