Led Zeppelin Wins ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Jury Trial – Led Zeppelin won a crucial victory in defending the legendary “Stairway to Heaven” from claims of copyright infringement on behalf of the 1968 Spirit song “Taurus.” The suit was particularly interesting because it was brought on behalf of songwriter Randy Wolfe’s estate, because ... more >
Google Paid Apple $1 Billion to Keep Search Bar on iPhone – When I read this headline, I hear Dr. Evil in my head, repeating “one billion dollars” over and over. Whereas Oracle, in their suit against Google for infringement of copyright over their Java software, likely doesn’t think it’s ... more >
Don’t Do This Ever (an advice column for writers): Plagiarism Warning edition – Laura Harner has apparently “written” 75 books in the past five years. I quoted “written” because some of them, at least, appear to be versions of m/f books by Becky McGraw and Opal Carew (and perhaps others?) that change the ... more >
WisCon’s flaky response to harassment incident sparks Internet uproar – You may have read about the sexual harassment allegations against former Tor editor Jim Frenkel last year on John Scalzi’s blog. Despite the widespread attention the allegations got, Frenkel was back at WisCon this year, and it was only afterward ... more >
Given all the discussion about community and critique and policing lately, a couple of recent author-to-author situations give these issues a kind of practical relevance. First there is the “genre experiment” undertaken by C.S. Lakin, who discussed her process and results at both Joel Friedlander and Barbara Rogan’s blogs. At the time ... more >
Are big smartphones the future of e-books? – Nokia makes the argument that more people will be reading on larger smartphones (or phablets apparently as some people call them). Previous studies show that readers between the ages of 18 and 24 are using their smartphones as readers more than other ... more >