Yfat Reiss Gendell denied the charges made against against her by former Foundry partner Peter McGuigan in his January lawsuit and filed counterclaims of her own, alleging defamation, tortious interference with agents and deals at her firm YRG Partners, breach of contract and more. The filing accuses McGuigan of “years of inattentiveness, incompetence, as well…
Legal
Class-Action Law Firm Tries Suing Amazon and Publishers Over the Site’s Dominance In Online Bookselling
Hagens Berman (joined by another firm, Sperling & Slater) filed a second lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Amazon and the five largest trade publishers, this time seeking class-action status on behalf of booksellers, alleging that Amazon has monopolized the online book market and that somehow the big publishers colluded to ensure…
Digital Briefs: Costco Audiobooks, AAP Opposes Library eBook Legislation
Costco started selling value-priced collections of digital audiobooks recently, playable through their own audiobooks app. For now they offer approximately 175 different collections to members. As Maryland (and other states) considers legislation that would require ebook publishers to also “license the book to public libraries in the state on reasonable terms,” the AAP explains in…
Penguin Random House’s Deal to Buy S&S Faces Increased Scrutiny In Both US and UK
Penguin Random House’s pending $2.175 billion deal to acquire Simon & Schuster drew headlines Monday following an announcement from the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority that it launched a merger inquiry last Friday. Of potentially greater significance, however, and reported here exclusively, is that the acquisition is now facing a more detailed level of scrutiny…
Skyhorse Claims Use of Woody’s Memoir in New HBO Series is Infringement
Skyhorse Publishing asserts that the use of clips from the audiobook version of Woody Allen’s 2020 memoir Apropos of Nothing in HBO’s new Woody Allen docuseries, Allen v. Farrow infringes the copyrights in the work. The company told Deadline, “We believe that its unauthorized use of the audiobook is clear, willful infringement under existing legal…
People, Etc.
At Knopf, Daniel Halpern will join as executive editor, starting July 1. He founded Ecco in 1971 and led the line until last September, when he was “immediately…transition[ed]” to editor-at-large and then left at the end of 2020. Diana Tejerina Miller has been promoted to executive editor and Andrew Miller moves up to vice president,…