Authors

Attorneys representing Boris Pasternak’s great-niece Anna Pasternak served notice through a letter to Lara Prescott, author of THE SECRETS WE KEPT, alleging copyright infringement of her 2016 book Lara: The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago. According to London’s Sunday Times, Pasternak’s attorneys charge that Prescott’s novel includes “an astonishing number of substantial elements” copied from Pasternak’s nonfiction book. Those similarities, they write, “exceed the mere inspiration a novelist may legitimately draw from a work of non-fiction.” Pasternak also takes issue with Prescott “passing off” her novel as the “untold story” of Boris Pasternak’s longtime mistress. UK […]

For only the second time, the Authors Guild and the AAR (Association of Authors’ Representatives) joined together to file an amicus brief in support of the seven publishers suing to block Audible Captions. They say the “feature presents a significant threat to the rights and livelihoods of authors and their representatives…. Audible seeks to bypass its glaring infringement of authors’ and publishers’ rights by arguing that this is a contract issue, not a copyright issue and that, in any event, its misappropriation qualifies as fair use.” Significantly, their legal argument is that “Audible completely ignores the Copyright Act’s explicit recognition […]

The US government filed suit again Edward Snowden in the Eastern District Court of Virginia, seeking any and all earnings from his just published book Permanent Record, as well as earnings from his speeches, alleging breach of contract and fiduciary duty. As a former employee of both the CIA and the NSA, Snowden had signed secrecy agreements requiring pre-publication review of any book, but he “did not, at any time, submit the manuscript for Permanent Record to either the CIA or NSA for prepublication review. Nor did Snowden obtain written approval from CIA or NSA prior to sharing manuscripts with […]