Earlier this week a federal court judge threw out a lawsuit against McGraw-Hill seeking class-action status in which photographer Bob Cordell claimed the publisher had deprived him of foreign royalties for his manuscript “Designing Audio Power Amplifiers.” The case should be of interest for those following suit against Harlequin over ebook royalties that we covered earlier this week. In the complaint, Cordell alleged that McGraw-Hill “systematically violates its contracts with its authors by failing to remit royalties based upon the amounts received from third parties for sales of works outside of the United States, when these third parties are the […]
Legal
Harlequin Denies Depriving Authors of eBook Royalties Through Switzerland Subsidiaries
On October 19 Harlequin responded to a class action-seeking lawsuit launched this summer by three authors — Barbara Keiler, writing as Judith Arnold; Mona Gay Thomas, writing as Gayle Wilson, and Linda Barrett. The suit alleges that the romance publisher deprived them of ebook royalties by funneling agreements through a Swiss-based subsidiary, which “licensed” ebooks to Harlequin’s actual publishing entity. In their reply, Harlequin denied the allegations, said they acted exactly as the contracts provided and sought to dismiss the suit entirely as being without merit. Harlequin’s basic argument is that, since the authors aren’t arguing the contracts were done “in bad […]
Judge Cote Resists Efforts to Postpone June 3 Trial Date
In an order issued late last week Judge Cote reaffirmed the June 3, 2013 trial date for the DOJ’s ebook lawsuit against Apple, Penguin, and Macmillan, after Justice had asked for a three-month extension for “fact and expert discovery” and requested that “other deadlines to be extended accordingly.” Judge Cote asked all parties to submit a new joint scheduling order by noon on Thursday, October 25 that would enable the trial date to stay put, with a telephone conference to follow the following day at 11 AM.
Briefs: FBF Trade Attendance Declines Slightly; Retailers Send Mail On eBook Settlement Credits
The Frankfurt Book Fair said that trade attendance decline 1.6 percent–while total visitors including the German public rose slightly, by 0.6 percent. FBF said in their release that “the fact that the number of visitors declined only marginally during the trade visitors’ days reflects the fact that the industry remains optimistic and is well equipped to face its challenges.” As previously announced, major ebook retailers started notifying qualifying customers by email that they will be entitled to unspecified store credits as part of the settlement of the suit by state attorneys general and the three Settlers. Amazon’s mail landed first, […]
Authors Guild Criticizes Hathi Trust Ruling; Will “Announce Our Next Steps Shortly”
The Authors Guild has responded to the court verdict regarding the Hathi Trust earlier this week, saying in a site post that “we disagree with nearly every aspect of the court’s ruling. We’re especially disappointed that the court refused to address the universities’ ‘orphan works’ program, which defendants have repeatedly promised to revive.” Executive director Paul Aiken writes of his concern that “the temptation to find reasons to release these digitized books clearly remains strong, and the university has consistently pledged to reinstate the orphan works program. The court’s decision leaves authors around the world at risk of having their […]
Hathi Trust Library Scans Are Judged Fair Use; Court Won’t Address Orphan Works Project Until It Is Resumed
With the recent settlement between Google and US publishers apparently not touching libraries at all (to the extent the parties have revealed anything), the companion suit by the Authors Guild and a number of other organzations against the Hathi Trust takes on extra interest. (Hathi is a digital repository for Google’s scans from many of the US academic libraries, with a strict set of limits, processes and procedures.) US District Court Judge Harold Baer in New York ruled on Wednesday, supporting the basic claim of the libraries that the Hathi Trust’s use of almost 10 million digital volumes qualifies as […]