New York Southern District Federal Judge Jed Rakoff is sticking to his plan for moving to trial quickly with the lawsuit filed by three booksellers against Amazon and the largest six publishing houses for Kindle DRM lock-in. After initially telling the parties “the court “requires that this case shall be ready for trial on August 12, 2013,” on Thursday Rakoff gave just a little–formalizing a schedule that would move the case towards an October trial. Earlier in the week Rakoff rejected a motion to stay discovery indefinitely. Judge Rakoff is giving the plaintiffs a whole week, until March 21, to […]
Archives for March 2013
With Geithner’s Deal, The Potential and The Challenge
As reported widely on Thursday–with a full deal report at PublishersMarketplace–the lengthy auction for former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s book has concluded with Crown winning rights and aiming for a 2014 publication. How much Geithner reveals and how book buyers feel about his record will certainly weigh heavily on the book’s performance when released. In anticipation of the sale, analyst Peter Hildick-Smith at book audience research firm The Codex Group queried a survey panel of just over 5,000 recent book buyers on Geithner’s “Author Equity” for us. (We’ll be featuring some other custom Codex Group research here in the days to come.) […]
Google’s Planned Death of Reader Starts RSS Scramble
Google announced Wednesday that their RSS feed aggregator Reader will be “retired” July 1, claiming that “over the years usage has declined.” The announcement led to venting online and a quick scramble for recommendations for comparable services–and at least Google has provided enough advance notice to let others fill the gap they are creating. At PublishersMarketplace we have provided literally thousands of RSS feeds for years–including one for every Dealmaker we track–and we serve well over 10,000 RSS requests a day. While it’s not substitute for Google Reader, we’ll use this opportunity to remind readers of the handy, somewhat under-utilized […]
Plans Resume for IPO or Sale of Springer Science, But Bertelsmann No Longer Interested
The long, slow process of finding something to do with Springer Science continues, as the company’s private equity owner EQT restarts plans to sell or launch an IPO that they hope would value the academic publisher at as much as 4 billion euros, Bloomberg reports. EQT, according to the ever-reliable “people familiar with the matter” will “send documents to interested groups this month and potential buyers have received non-disclosure agreements.” Bertelsmann, which had expressed some interest in buying Springer last fall, now says in an email statement they won’t pursue the company after all. “For Bertelsmann, the area of business […]
Legal: Yes, Of Course Apple’s CEO Will Testify…and More Suits Updated
Judge Cote ruled in a Wednesday morning teleconference hearing that Apple ceo Tim Cook must testify as part of the DOJ’s lawsuit against Apple in June. Reuters reported that Judge Cote cited the death of Steve Jobs as a key reason in ordering Cook’s deposition, which will last for a minimum of four hours. “Because of that loss, I think the government is entitled to take testimony from high-level executives within Apple about topics relevant to the government case,” she said. Apple had tried to insulate Cook from the trial, saying he was not named in the original antitrust complaint […]
Awards: Story Prize, Man Asian, American Academy Honors, and the UK’s New Folio Prize
National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree Claire Vaye Watkins has claimed two new honors in the same week. She prevailed over Dan Chaon and Junot Diaz to win the Story Prize for her book BATTLEBORN, and she is also is receiving the American Academy of Arts and Letters award given to “a young writer of considerable literary talent for a work published in 2012.” The Academy named 19 recipients in all of a total of $175,000 in literature prizes this year. A new E.B. White Award for achievement in children’s literature has been given to author of TUCK EVERLASTING, […]