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Archives for December 2023
Holiday Book Sales See Strong Final Week, Outpace Last Year
Circana Bookscan reported sales for the week ending December 23, with a strong finish to holiday book sales: They recorded sales of 31.68 million print units, up 1.74 million units over the same week a year ago, a gain of 5.8 percent. That makes for the strongest week 51 in the Bookscan calendar over the past five years, and is comparable to the final big holiday weeks (week 50) from 2020 and 2021. Continuing its strength from the year, adult fiction registered its best holiday week in the last five years, moving 6.8 million units. That strong finish puts sales […]
House at Pooh Corner and Other Classic Works From 1928 to Enter The Public Domain On January 1
As usual, thousands of copyrighted works from 1928 will enter the public domain in the US on January 1, becoming free for all to copy and share. Notable books entering the public domain include D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Virginia Woolf’s Orlando; W.E.B. Du Bois’s Dark Princess; A.A. Milne’s House at Pooh Corner (featuring illustrations by E.H. Shepard); Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall; Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train; and more.
New York Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft for Copyright Infringement
As we noted recently, coalitions of authors took the lead in 2023 in trying to hold the leaders in generative AI accountable for stealing vast amounts of copyrighted materials to train their Large Language Models. Now at year’s end, authors gained a powerful ally in court as the New York Times Company filed its own copyright infringement lawsuit in Federal Court in New York’s Southern District against OpenAI and Microsoft. The NYT says comes after lengthy negotiations: “For months, The Times has attempted to reach a negotiated agreement with Defendants, in accordance with its history of working productively with large […]
PRH Wins Partial Victory in Iowa Book Ban Suit; WaPo Analyzes Book Bans
In a preliminary victory for Penguin Random House in their suit claiming that Iowa’s book bans are unconstitutional, the state conceded that books about sexual orientation and gender identity will be allowed in school and classroom libraries. According to a press release, “students will be able to access them freely, read, and do reports on them.” This concession covers half of the publisher’s case against Iowa, which they brought with authors, educators, a student and parent, and the Iowa State Education Association. The other half concerns books that describe or visually depict sex, regardless of context, which are restricted through […]
Skyhorse to Acquire Regnery
Skyhorse announced a deal to acquire conservative publisher Regnery from Salem Media Group, which amusingly they chose to release through the New York Times. (But it worked, and got the paper to cover an otherwise small acquisition.) Regnery is projecting sales of just $10 million for 2023, and will operate as an imprint of Skyhorse. They bring a backlist of over 1,500 titles. Skyhorse president and publisher Tony Lyons tells the NYT candidly that his books “are provocative and dangerous and disturbing,” which he sees as an argument why stores should carry them, to “encourage dialogue and debate.” The transaction […]