Late Friday afternoon Judge Denise Cote issued two rulings in the ongoing ebook antitrust case. The first finally grants class certification for the consumers who first sued Apple and the Agency Five publishers back in 2011 and officially sought certification last October, in an 86-page order. (The publishers, of course, settled, and consumers started seeing the $166 settlement funds issued just recently as store credit by Amazon, Nook, and other retailers). The second 59-page ruling denied Apple’s bid to exclude the opinions of the plaintiffs’ damages expert while largely dismissing the opinions of Apple’s own experts. With respect to the class, Judge […]
Legal
As Customers Receive eBook Settlement Credits, Other Retailers File Antitrust Suits
Amazon customers received a present in their accounts this morning courtesy of the ebook settlements between the “Agency Five” publishers and various state governments: store credit to buy more books (print or ebooks). As previously outlined, customers who bought at least one ebook published by Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin or Macmillan between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012 will get a credit of $3.17 per ebook for New York Times bestsellers, and 73 cents for non-NYT bestsellers. For Minnesotans, who reached a separate settlement, the breakdown is $3.93 for NYT bestsellers and 94 cents for non-bestsellers. Twitter […]
AAP Chair Reidy Calls for “Concerted Effort” to Speak Out On Publishing’s Value
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) annual meeting began with an address from outgoing AAP board chair, Simon & Schuster ceo Carolyn Reidy. With the day’s program focused on the theme of “The Next Chapter in Protecting IP,” Reidy took note of the hearings underway in the House Judiciary Committee as part of a comprehensive review of US copyright law. While acknowledging that “passage of a new copyright act may not occur for years,” Reidy told her colleagues, “We must act now and sustain our commitment for the long haul if we want to assure that our interests, and those of […]
Briefs: Trudeau Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison; Carnegie & Greenaway Awards Shortlists; and More
Allen Guelzo has won the inaugural Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History for GETTYSBURG: The Last Invasion (Knopf). The $50,000 prize was announced Monday night at a ceremony held at the New-York Historical Society. The Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal shortlists were announced this morning, with the winners to be named on June 23. Anne Fine, Rebecca Stead, and Susan Cooper landed on the Carnegie list, while Jon Klassen appears twice on the Greenaway shortlist for THIS IS NOT MY HAT and THE DARK (text by Lemony Snicket). Onetime bestselling weight-loss “guru” and infomercial staple Kevin Trudeau was sentenced to 10 […]
Judge Rules Open Road Infringed HarperCollins’ Right to License eBook of “Julie of the Wolves”
Last Friday US District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald granted summary judgment in favor of HarperCollins in their lawsuit brought in late 2011 against Open Road over the epublisher’s publication of JULIE OF THE WOLVES in ebook form. Judge Buchwald writes that, “Based on a plain reading of the contractual language, we hold that the 1971 contract grants HarperCollins the exclusive right to license third parties to publish e-book versions of Julie of the Wolves.” She finds that is “a right which was infringed by Open Road in its unlicensed e-book publication of Julie of the Wolves.” The judge has […]
Kobo Continues to Press Case to Preserve Agency In Canada
Kobo continues to press their motion to rescind the ebook pricing consent agreements in Canada between the Competition Commission and the four agency publishers that we first reported on last week. In a memorandum of fact filed March 10, they reiterated their primary argument that “without a stay, Kobo will be irreparably harmed. Its contracts with four of the largest E-book publishers in Canada will be terminated or fundamentally altered. Kobo – not the Consenting Publishers – will bear the financial losses arising from these changes.” As in the US, the Commission has focused on their predictions that “the price […]