In a memo to employees on Tuesday, Simon & Schuster president and ceo Jonathan Karp echoed Penguin Random House’s statement that they will fight the Department of Justice’s lawsuit to block the merger of the two houses. “Penguin Random House is determined to fight vigorously to bring this transaction to fruition and we will be doing all we can to help in those efforts,” he wrote. Additionally, “We are committed to working together with PRH to fight this lawsuit.” (The DOJ suit names ViacomCBS as a defendant, alongside Bertelsmann and PRH.) Karp writes, “Notably, DOJ has not alleged that the […]
Legal
Huge Index of Scholarly Articles Raises Copyright Concerns
An enormous free index of scholarly literature was released on October 7, raising copyright questions, Nature reports. The General Index—which searches more than 100 million journal articles—allows researchers to automatically search a vast amount of published work, including articles protected by paywall. Previously, scholars have only been able to search within articles they subscribe to, and publishers have controlled access to such computerized searches, known as text mining. Creator Carl Malamud says that the index is not a breach of copyright because it only contains words and sentence fragments — albeit 355 billion of them — not the entire text […]
DOJ Sues to Block PRH Acquisition of S&S
The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division filed suit to block the proposed acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House for $2.175 billion. This time the primary argument is not on behalf of consumers but authors, and authors of “anticipated top-selling books” in particular. Filing in the Washington, DC District Court, the DOJ alleges violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act, arguing the acquisition is “likely to substantially lessen competition” for “the acquisition of US publishing rights to books from authors.” That market for “anticipated top-selling books…would be highly concentrated,” the filing argues. “The merger would give […]
Gendell Says Continuing Errors Are the Obstacle to Foundry Author Payments
Former Foundry partner Yfat Reiss Gendell answered former partner Peter McGuigan’s request that the court order her to approve outstanding payments due to authors with an extensive account of what she says have been “erroneous payments.” Going further, Gendell calls the motion “a continuation of the smear campaign that gave rise to” her countersuit for defamation, “falsely portraying Ms. Gendell as the cause of delays of payments owed to Foundry’s authors and agents.” She asks the court to sanction McGuigan “for making the frivolous motion.” McGuigan’s recent filing cited almost $80,000 in payments said to be due and awaiting approval. […]
Pearson Sues Chegg For Copyright Infringement In Selling Textbook Answers
Pearson Education filed a lawsuit yesterday against Chegg, claiming copyright infringement. The complaint claims that the website Chegg Study sells answers to end-of-chapter questions from 9,000 textbooks, including Pearson’s, “using precisely the same unit, chapter, and topic orders and naming conventions for the questions employed in the textbooks.” Subscribers to Chegg Services, which includes Chegg Study, grew 67 percent to 6.6 million last year, and the company reported $644 million in net sales in 2020, up from $410 million in 2019, according to SEC filings. The complaint states, “Textbook questions are intended to be part of the learning progression. Educators […]
Democrats Press Amazon Over Anti-Vax Books
As Amazon’s algorithms allow COVID-19 misinformation to top search results, Rep. Adam Schiff of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have written to the company about its “misinformation policies and what the company is doing to stop its systems from recommending books and other products linked to falsehoods about the pandemic and vaccines,” NPR reports. Warren’s letter specifically notes a book by Joseph Mercola, “a Florida physician who has long promoted debunked claims about vaccines,” which is listed as an Amazon bestseller and is consistently one of the top search results (published by Chelsea Green). NPD Bookscan reports sales […]