Legal

The Authors Guild responded to our request for comment after Wednesday’s Publishers Lunch was dispatched. Executive director Paul Aiken said, “We plan to appeal the decision” from Judge Denny Chin finding that Google’s book scanning was protected fair use under copyright law. Aikens added: “We disagree with and are disappointed by the court’s decision. This case presents a fundamental challenge to copyright that merits review by a higher court. Google made unauthorized digital editions of nearly all of the world’s valuable copyright-protected literature and profits from displaying those works. In our view, such mass digitization and exploitation far exceeds the […]

Late Friday Hachette spokesperson Sophie Cottrell clarified their position in the ongoing litigation with the estate of Richard Ben Cramer that we reported on. Hachette re-filed their claim, Cottrell explained, “with the cooperation of and prior discussion with the attorney for Cramer’s estate” and, moreover, is “attempting to work with the estate to resolve this matter without further need for litigation.” Cottrell reiterated that the initial lawsuit “was a means of last recourse by Hachette for repayment” of Cramer’s outstanding advance. (Lawyers for Cramer’s estate had still not responded to our request for comment.)

When Richard Ben Cramer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of WHAT IT TAKES (1992), the influential 1988 presidential campaign chronicle, died January 7 from complications of lung cancer only days after being diagnosed with the illness, he had just been served by a lawsuit from his onetime publisher, Hachette Book Group’s Twelve imprint, for failing to deliver a manuscript on now-disgraced New York Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez. At the time of Cramer’s death, a spokesperson for Hachette told us “we were very surprised to hear of Mr. Cramer’s illness. We had been trying to contact him for well […]