Manuscript thief Filippo Bernardini and his attorney Jennifer Brown both submitted letters in advance of his Federal Court sentencing on April 5, trying to explain Bernardini’s motivation for the thefts. Bernardini writes that stealing manuscripts was an “obsession, a compulsive behavior” related to wanting to work in publishing. His attorney suggests, “His offense can be seen as a form of ‘extreme collecting'”…. He had served as an intern at Andrew Nurnberg Associates in London, but was unable to immediately find a job in the industry afterward. Bernardini faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, plus fines for wire fraud […]
Legal
Stephen Elliot Settles Defamation Suit Against Moira Donegan
Stephen Elliot has settled his defamation lawsuit against Moira Donegan, creator of the “Sh–y Media Men” list. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The settlement ends a years-long case, which began in 2018 when Elliot sued Donegan for $1.5 million in New York’s Eastern District for the inclusion of his name and allegations against him on the list, to which 30 other women anonymously contributed. Previously, a judge denied Elliot’s attempts to have the identities of the the other contributors revealed and Google objected to a subpoena to release the names.
Authors Guild Adds AI Training to Model Book Contract
The Authors Guild has added a new clause to its model trade book contract that prohibits publishers from “using or sublicensing books under contract to train artificial intelligence technologies.” The clause is a response to recent concerns raised by authors and publishers regarding digital publishers like Findaway Voices and Bookwire, who have partnered with Apple for machine learning and Google Books for AI-narrated audiobooks, respectively. The AG writes that platforms and publishers have been “adding language to their terms that allows them to data mine books for use in training AI models that will inevitably compete with human-authored works.” The […]
Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Macmillan For Data Breach
A former Macmillan employee, Victoria Batchelor, has filed a lawsuit seeking class action status against Macmillan in the Southern District of New York related to June’s cyber attack and data breach. The suit alleges that Macmillan failed to “protect highly sensitive data” and had “no effective means to prevent, detect, stop, or mitigate breaches of its systems—thereby allowing cybercriminals unrestricted access to employee PII.” Macmillan had disclosed a ransomware “security incident” that began on June 25 and shut their systems down for a week or more. But according to filings with state attorneys general and the new lawsuit systems, the […]
Authors Place Press Settles Lawsuit with Authors Guild; Will Stop Publishing
A small press that was sued last month by the Authors Guild over nonpayment has settled, the AG announced. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of 11 authors and led by Karyn Schoenbart, accused Authors Place Press of failing to pay royalties, provide royalty statements, or revert rights to the authors. In the settlement, Authors Place owner Tony Ferraro agreed to revert book rights to the plaintiffs, terminate their agreements so they may publish elsewhere, and provide the authors with all artwork, text, and design files free of charge. Ferraro will also pay Schoenbart–former ceo of NPD Group–“a token monetary payment” […]
Bill to Limit Library E-Book Lending Fails in VA Senate
A bill failed in the Virginia state senate yesterday that would have prevented publishers from imposing limits on lending electronic material. The Committee on General Laws and Technology voted 15-0 to block the bill. The bill stipulated that a publisher’s contract with a library could not “Preclude…the Library from licensing any electronic literary material;” “Restrict the number of licenses for any electronic literary material that a library may acquire after the same item is made available to the public;” “Require a library to pay a cost-per-circulation fee to loan any electronic literary material, unless substantially lower in aggregate than the […]