Random House and Sesame Workshop launched a new digital publishing initiative this week with a number of ebooks focusing on early reading and readiness. Elmo Says Achoo! and Elmo’s Breakfast Bingo are the first titles on sale, with an additional 19 titles available this Spring. “With this program, Random House and Sesame Workshop are expanding our long-standing partnership of more than four decades and extending our shared commitment to children’s literacy and enriching children’s early learning experiences to a new platform,” vp, publisher Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group Kate Klimo said in a statement. Release On Valentine’s Day Piatkus […]
Legal
Agency Lawsuit Is Expanded; Draws On Information from Amazon
On Friday, the lead law firm in the consolidated class action suits over the agency ebook pricing model Hagens Berman filed an expanded, revised and amended 86-page complaint and promptly issued a press release, as they did with their original filing last August. To understand the case you shouldn’t rely on that release, however, which misspells the name of defendant “Hachett Livre” and trumpets having “uncovered statements” in exotic places like the New Yorker, Steve Jobs’ biography and company blogs. The complaint itself follows the same reasoning as the original filing, basing their allegation of conspiracy on reasoning–that for any […]
People, Etc.
Laurie Chittenden has joined Hyperion an editor-at-large, where she will will focus on acquiring a mix of commercial nonfiction and fiction book projects. She spent the past five years at William Morrow as executive editor, and returns to the publishing house where she began her career in 1993. Steve Kasdin has joined Curtis Brown as director of digital strategy, to “supervise their e-book program” and help “coordinate their dealings with publishers and etailers.” Kasdin was at Amazon on the Kindle team before relocating back to the East Coast. Meanwhile, the Jean Naggar Literary Agency has posted an open invitation to […]
Supreme Court Upholds 1994 Law that Put Some Foreign Works Back Under Copyright
By a 6 to 2 vote, the Supreme Court upheld a 1994 law extending copyright protection in the US to works under copyright in other countries that are part of the Berne Convention, in the case Golan v. Holder. The challenge was brought by a group of orchestra conductors, musicians, and publishers who lost access to works that had been in the public domain and went back under copyright after the law was passed. The law in question “mainly applies to works first published abroad between 1923 and 1989.” Congress was essentially required by the World Trade Organization to amend […]
If This Story Is Right It Shows How Weak the Agency Lawsuits and Investigations Are
Washington antitrust attorney and former Justice Department lawyer Andre Barlow indicates to paidContent that in Justice’s current investigation “the main issue at stake is Apple and the publishers’ use of so-called ‘most favored nation’ clauses to set pricing.” Similarly, as they note, lead class action attorney Steve Berman writes, “The mfn clauses are significant restraints of trade and part of the anticompetitive acts we will attack.” Yet, as the article notes, “‘most favored nation’ clauses are not illegal, and are used in a variety of industries such as medical services.” Even Barlow “says that the clauses by themselves are not […]
Corporate News: AllRecipes.com Bidders; Harper’s Building Sold; Qatar Boosts Lagardere Stake; and More
Random House is reportedly among the bidders for Reader’s Digest’s successful AllRecipes.com unit, as is Amazon, according to the NY Post, with the auction expected to end soon. Other bidders according to the report include Meredith, which had tried the acquire the property earlier, and Scripps Interactive, which owns the Food Network. NYP Also from Random House, the publisher notes that the week before Christmas, the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed a class action lawsuit against the publisher and former author Timothy Ferriss. The plaintiffs took issue with “bonus material” in THE 4-HOUR BODY that was originally accessible only with a […]