Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage have filed suit against Microsoft, the latest in a series of lawsuits claiming that training OpenAI on authors’ books is copyright infringement. Like other suits, the authors highlight that the company is making billions of dollars on its AI products without any compensation for the authors whose works built them. “Defendants clearly could have obtained the capital to pay given the extraordinary investments already made and the staggering valuations now associated with these LLMs,” the complaint reads. “Defendants also could have explored financing alternatives, such as profit sharing or other mechanisms to facilitate their development […]
Obituary: Matthew Flamm
Poet and reporter Matthew Flamm, 70, died on January 2 of brain cancer. From 2004 until his retirement in 2020, Flamm was a reporter at Crain’s New York Business. He previously wrote for the New York Post and New York Observer. His poetry appeared in the New Yorker, and his poetry collection GRIEVING FOR BEGINNERS was self-published last year.
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Germany’s Buchreport Shuts Down; Spiegel Finds New Source for Bestseller List
After parent company Harenberg filed for bankruptcy in December, it ceased operations at the beginning of January, taking German book industry magazine Buchreport with it. The magazine notes, “Buchreport no longer provides you and the book industry with news, analyzes and statistics, bestseller lists and best practices, and no longer offers a look over the fence at other book markets and general developments that also influence this particular industry. Maybe you will miss one or two things?” Buchreport had compiled bestseller lists for Der Spiegel news magazine since 1971. In a separate release, Spiegel announced that their bestseller lists will […]
The New Bestsellers of 2023
As always, backlist titles dominated the top-selling books of last year. Of the top 200 books on Circana Bookscan through December 23, 2023 (their week 51, so nearly final)—including paperbacks and new editions—142 were more than a year old, in line with the roughly 70 percent of all print unit sales comprised by backlist titles. Classics such as The Outsiders and 1984 and perennial kids favorites from Eric Carle and Sandra Boynton took their spots on the list, as did books with big media tie-ins (which have been bestsellers in their own right): Killers of the Flower Moon, Daisy Jones […]
Judge Blocks Iowa Book Ban Law
A federal judge filed a preliminary injunction against Iowa’s “incredibly broad” book banning law, which was set to take effect on January 1. The law would restrict from school and classroom libraries any book that describes or depicts sex, and any book about sexuality or gender identity (the latter half of the law was blocked on December 22). Penguin Random House and four authors filed suit to block the provision in November. In the filing, Judge Stephen Locher noted that the law “has resulted in the removal of hundreds of books from school libraries, including, among others, nonfiction history books, […]