Pen America, Penguin Random House, and a group of authors and local parents have filed a federal lawsuit against the Escambia County, FL school district. According to a release, this is “a first-of-its-kind challenge to unlawful censorship” as it brings parents, authors, and a publisher together to fight escalating book bans. The lawsuit argues that the county’s removal and restriction of books–the majority of which focus on “race, racism, and LGBTQ identities” and are by BIPOC and/or LGBTQ authors–from school libraries violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The suit aims to have the district […]
Legal
Publishers and IA “Cautiously Optimistic” Negotiations Could End Soon
As AAP ceo Maria Pallante implied at the organization’s annual meeting, the publishers and the Internet Archive asked Federal judge John Koeltl for yet another postponement to file a proposal for judgment to be entered following his verdict finding the IA guilty of copyright infringement. But the parties see the possibility of resolution soon, writing: “Since our last extension request, the parties have resolved all but a few substantive issues with respect to injunctive relief, and expect that further discussion will resolve all but potentially one. The parties have also had a further exchange of proposals regarding the resolution of […]
Proposals for Internet Archive Judgment “Will Take Some Time,” and More From the AAP Meeting
The AAP publishers and Internet Archive are due to submit proposals “for the appropriate procedure to determine the judgment to be entered” in the verdict finding the IA guilty of mass copyright infringement by later this week after multiple delays. But during the AAP’s virtual annual meeting on Monday, ceo Maria Pallante implied that more time will be needed. “Both sides are discussing a possible stipulation as to the scope of injunctive relief, damages and attorneys fees at the request of the judge,” Pallante reported. But, “This process is extremely important and detailed, and it will take some time.” During a […]
Elizabeth Warren Didn’t Violate First Amendment in Criticism of Amazon, Court Finds
As expected, Senator Elizabeth Warren won a lawsuit brought against her by a publisher and authors who said her letter to Amazon criticizing their book amounted to a First Amendment violation. In 2021, Warren wrote a letter to Amazon claiming that Joseph Mercola and Ronnie Cummins’s THE TRUTH ABOUT COVID-19 included vaccine misinformation and calling out the retailer’s algorithms that allowed the book to show up at the top of search results. The authors, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr (who wrote the foreword) and publisher Chelsea Green, sued Warren, arguing that her letter infringed on their First Amendment rights […]
All the President’s Legal Deficiencies In Woodward Audio Suit
Attorneys for author Bob Woodward and his publisher Simon & Schuster recently filed a variety of responses to Donald Trump’s suit from January, alleging in a Pensacola, FL Federal Court that the audiobook (and print version) of THE TRUMP TAPES: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump was published without Trump’s permission and infringes his rights. For starters, the defendants laugh at the filing of the suit in Pensacola, and ask for dismissal due to improper venue, or at least a transfer to courts in Washington, DC or New York’s Southern District. As they argue, “None of the substantial […]
Australian Publisher Fagan Charges Allen & Unwin With Sexual Harassment
Correcting and updating a story we ran earlier, Allen & Unwin publisher Kelly Fagan has made “allegations of sexual harassment by a former publisher at the company over a two-year period,” according to her attorneys at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers. Those lawyers say her harassment claim alleges “that she was sexually harassed at work.” The charges were referenced in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article that says, “The literary world is in a lather over a sexual harassment lawsuit filed in the Federal Court by one of the industry’s most prominent publishers, Kelly Fagan, against her employer Allen & Unwin.” The […]