On Monday, Judge Alan D. Albright of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division filed his full order blocking “READER,” a state book banning law that would require retailers to review and rate millions of books according to vague state standards for obscene content (ratings that the state could change anyway). The court ruled that the state could not delegate the rating of books to third parties, holding that it violates the First Amendment as “compelled speech.” In the preliminary injunction, the judge all but calls the Texas law dumb: “For whatever reason, Texas chose […]
Legal
One More Author Class Action Suit Against OpenAI; Their First Reply
Author plaintiffs Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, David Henry Wang, Matthew Klam and Rachel Louise Snyder are the latest to file suit against OpenAI in Federal Court in California’s Northern District for San Francisco, seeking class action status “arising from OpenAI’s clear infringement of their intellectual property.” The suit is substantially similar to ones filed earlier this summer — first by named plaintiffs Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad, and then by lead plaintiffs Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey. (The latter filed a separate suit against Meta for their AI training.) Both of the earlier suits were brought by the […]
Internet Archive Appeals Their Big Loss
Following US District Court Judge John Koeltl’s clear, unequivocal and overwhelming finding the Internet Archive guilty of “wholesale copying and unauthorized lending” of publishers’ books, the IA filed notice of appeal on the inauspicious day of Monday, September 11. Judge Koeltl’s ruling was deeply rooted in Second Circuit precedent, including multiple cases already adjudicated by the Second Circuit of Appeals, which has made crystal clear that there is no digital first sale doctrine. Internet Archive director of library services Chris Freeland admits in a posted statement, “We know this won’t be easy.” And he reasserts one of their core arguments […]
Authors Guild Helps Authors Demand Takedown from IA
Though the Internet Archive was found guilty of copyright infringement and forced to remove books from its website, the injunction itself only applies to books published by the plaintiffs–Hachette, Harper Collins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House–and there is a provision designed to include any other AAP member publishers who wish to do so. The injunction also only covers titles that are available in ebook editions, leaving out some print books that may have been self-published, published by small presses, or had their rights reverted (or even books where big houses have rights only to the print editions). In a blog […]
Judge To Enjoin Texas Book Ban Law
In a public status conference for the trial brought by bookstores and the AAP against Texas’s book ban law, Judge Alan Albright told lawyers for each party that he will be ruling for the plaintiffs and preventing any further action from the state. The judge said that he was not able to get a written order completed by the day the law was to take effect, Sept 1, and that it should be available in the next two weeks. The order will grant a preliminary injunction to the statute in its entirety, and deny the state’s motion to dismiss the […]
Scribe Media Resumes Operations Amid Multiple Lawsuits
Scribe Media has resumed at least some operations, and has reactivated some of their social media promotions and campaigns, after massive layoffs earlier this year. Though the company was looking for a buyer — and a small investment firm signed a letter of intent to acquire Scribe’s assets if they could get financing –there is no sign of that happening. According to a post in mid-July, prospective buyer Enduring Ventures had concluded during due diligence, like many others, “that the situation was a lot worse than our initial understanding.” Instead, they have “a consulting agreement…which allows us to work on […]