The Authors Guild and the Songwriters Guild of America asked the US Copyright Office on Friday to fix “a quirk” in copyright law that could block certain works from the late 70s from being eligible for 35-year termination. Under the 1976 revision of copyright law, authors (and all other copyright holders) are allowed to terminate transfers of their copyrights to publishers after a set number of years, with different provisions for pre- and post-1978 works. Congress made such provision “because of the unequal bargaining position of authors, resulting in part from the impossibility of determining a work’s value until it […]
Authors
Awards, People and More
The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers has named its new class of fourteen fellows. The list includes fiction writers David Bezmozgis, Maile Chapman, Mary Gaitskill, and Wells Tower; poet Geoffrey Brock; New Yorker staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar; graphic novelist and artist David Sandlin; and Pulitzer-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed. Jo Ann Miller, former editorial director of Basic Books, has formed J.A. Miller Associates to provide ghost writing, editorial collaboration, developmental editing, and author coaching. At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Maire Gorman has been promoted to the new position of vp of trade sales […]
Once Again, Cussler Wins/Loses In Odd Movie Suit
The bizarre case between Clive Cussler and Crusader Entertainment (now Bristol Bay Productions) continues, with a California Court of Appeals ruling once again having both sides claiming victory, at least for now. The court overturned a prior order that Cussler pay Crusader $5 million for breach of contract. But they rejected Cussler’s contention that he was still owed $8.5 million by Crusader for rights to a book of his that was never adapted into a movie. Attorneys for both sides said they won, though Cussler’s lawyer Bert Fields wins the award for best convoluted phrasing, contending that “Crusader was barred […]
A Miscellaneous Day: Isaacson and Jobs?; A James Cameron Novel?; Patterson Comics; and More
The NYT says Walter Isaacson is working on an authorized biography of Steve Jobs, based on “two people briefed on the project.” Producer Jon Landau told MTV News that James Cameron wants to write an Avatar prequel. “Jim wants to write a novel that is a big epic that fills in a lot of things…. It would be something that would lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn’t have time to deal with.” We’ll see. USA Today says that James Patterson has a […]
Mueller's Nobel Acceptance Speech
The Nobel organization has posted the full text of literature laureate Herta Mueller’s acceptance speech, delivered yesterday in Stockholm (translated by Philip Boehm). “I wish I could utter a sentence for all those whom dictatorships deprive of dignity every day, up to and including the present,” Mueller said in her closing. One excerpt, about how the Romanian dictatorship motivated to her write when speaking was not sufficient: “Still, what can’t be said can be written. Because writing is a silent act, a labor from the head to the hand. The mouth is skipped over. I talked a great deal during […]
Judge Dismisses Meyer Infringement Cast
In a California Federal Court, Judge Otis D. Wright II carefully read and compared Stephenie Meyer’s BREAKING DAWN and Jordan Scott’s THE NOCTURNE and dismissed Scott’s case alleging copyright infringement. As Judge Wright summarized, “plaintiff simply argues that the works are similar in three particular respects: the marriage sequence, consummation of the marriage on a beach, and the childbirth.” In comparing the works, he finds that “the plots and themes in the subject books have little in common,” “the settings and characters in the two works are vastly different,” oh and also, “the characters are similarly different.” While both books […]