The seven publishers who sued Audible to block their proposed Captions feature that scrolled machine-generated text along with the audio “have resolved their dispute.” The parties filed a proposed permanent injunction and request for dismissal with prejudice with Judge Valerie Caproni. The settlement represents a complete victory for the publishers — Audible cannot “caption” copyrighted content without permission. The injunction confirms Audible is prohibited from “creating, generating, reproducing, modifying, distributing, publishing, or displaying…written text derived from the audiobook versions of publishers’ works for any product or service created or offered by Audible…without express authorization from the owners or exclusive licensees […]
AAP November 2019 Stats Show Weak Sales
As we explain regularly, AAP StatShot data can vary widely from month to month (and that does not seem to be an indicator of anything significant). And we already know how 2019 trade print sales turned out from a unit perspective from NPD Bookscan. With all of that in mind, the AAP November 2019 data is markedly lower for both adult and children’s trade books, only in part owing to a particularly strong comp year. Adult print sales totaled $304 million, compared to $466 million in November 2018. (November 2018’s updated reporting was only slightly lower than the $473 million […]
2019 Diversity Study Offers a More Comprehensive Baseline
The 2019 Lee & Low Diversity Baseline Survey results are in, and “the field is just as White today as it was four years ago,” write Jason Low and Hannah Ehrlich in their analysis of the data. But that data pool itself presents a much broader, richer understanding of who works in publishing than their first landmark effort from 2015. Through expansive outreach by Lee & Low, the new survey garnered over twice as many responses (7,893 responses in 2019, versus 3,706 in 2015), across 153 companies, this time including university presses and literary agencies, too, along with all of […]
College Bookstores File Class Action Lawsuit Against McGraw-Hill, Cengage, and Pearson
A group of independent college bookstores have filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit against McGraw-Hill, Cengage, and Pearson, who together control 80 percent of the higher education textbook market, and against college bookselling chains Barnes & Noble Education and Follett, who are dubbed their “co-conspirators.” At issue are the publishers’ “inclusive access” programs, digital-only course materials that the plaintiffs say publishers sell exclusively to Barnes & Noble and Follett, cutting independent retailers out. According to the suit, the list of institutions where indies were blocked from buying and selling inclusive access in 2019 included the University of New Mexico, Eastern Kentucky […]
Parneros Tells the Court His Side of the Story One More Time, with Feeling
Former Barnes & Noble ceo Demos Parneros filed January 15 his opposition documents against Barnes & Noble’s arguably ill-advised motion for summary judgment on two of Parneros’ three claims, defamation and breach of good faith and fair dealing. To succeed with the motion, BN has to prove that there’s no issue of fact when it comes to dismissing those claims. Parneros’ declaration and opposition memo, filed with dozens of pages of internal correspondence and depositions — alas, redacted all — purport to be evidence that BN and Riggio acted in bad faith and did indeed defame him. Parneros’ declaration recounts […]
Pearson Preview Indicates 30 Percent Decline In Printed Textbooks, Weak Profits Ahead
Pearson released a 2019 trading update, providing a preview of what’s to come in the complete earnings results coming February 21. It’s not good. In North America, overall revenue was down 3 percent, dragged down by a 12 percent decline in the US Higher Education business. Print sales dropped an astonishing 30 percent, while digital sales showed only “modest growth.” The release notes, “This reflects rapidly changing market dynamics that are reshaping the industry, as illustrated by the fact that in 2019 we sold 3.7 million textbooks to students at US universities, compared to 7.4 million in 2016 and 21 […]