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…
Legal
Briefs: Waiting On Audible Captions Settlement Details, Book Culture Store Closed for Good, and More
For those watching the dates, the parties in the publishers’ lawsuit against Audible seeking to block their Captions feature had been expected to report back to the court on the execution of their settlement agreement as of Tuesday, January 21. But in the meantime, based on the previous report that an agreement had been reached,…
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…
Barnes & Noble Denies Age Discrimination Claims and Requests Jury Trial
Barnes & Noble has demanded a jury trial to fight former employee Barbara Tavres’ claim that the company violated state and federal labor law by discriminating against her and other employees on the basis of age. In a response filed January 13 in the Northern District of California, BN denied all Tavres’ claims, writing repeatedly…
Audible and Publishers Settle Captions Dispute
After an encouraging update in late December, Audible reports to federal judge Valerie Caproni that the company has finalized a settlement with the seven AAP publishers that sued to block the digital audio company’s planned Captions features. Audible attorney Emily Reisbaum wrote on behalf of all parties on January 13, the date an update had…
People: Kachka to Become LA Times Books Editor, and More
New York magazine and Vulture writer and books editor Boris Kachka is leaving his position to become books editor at the Los Angeles Times. The LAT said in an announcement, “We’re pleased to announce that Boris Kachka is joining The Times as books editor. Boris comes to us from New York magazine, where has been…