The Authors Guild, the Open Markets Institute, and a number of writers associations have co-signed a letter urging the Department of Justice to reject the plan to merge Simon & Schuster into Penguin Random House. “The deal would bring well more than half of key U.S. book markets under the control of a single corporation, which poses a variety of potential threats to freedom of speech and democracy in the United States. The takeover falls clearly within the standard of illegality set by the Clayton Act and should be summarily rejected,” argues the letter, later offering “five arguments that easily […]
Legal
McGuigan Sues Former Partner Gendell, Alleging “Criminal Embezzlement” of Funds
On Thursday, literary agent Peter McGuigan filed suit on behalf of himself and the literary agency Foundry in New York Supreme Court against former business partner Yfat Reiss Gendell, charging breach of contract, conversion of funds, intentional fraud and fraudulent conveyance, negligent misrepresentation, and more. Alleging “criminal embezzlement,” the suit says that Gendell illegally transferred over $800,000 from Foundry accounts to herself and to cover expenses related to her new agency YRG Partners. It also alleges that over $45,000 in unlawful charges were made to company credit cards on Gendell’s behalf; that she hired some former Foundry employees in violation […]
Bolton Permitted Discovery to Show Government Acted Unfairly
Former national security John Bolton can go forward with discovery to fight the government lawsuit claiming he violated nondisclosure agreements by publishing The Room Where It Happened. US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth denied the government’s motion for summary judgment, arguing that Bolton should be allowed to gather testimony and documents to prove his claim that the government acted in bad faith. “Because Bolton argues that the government acted inequitably, the Court must be satisfied that the government has clean hands before it can impose a constructive trust. For Bolton to support that argument, he must be allowed limited discovery,” […]
Hagens Berman Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Amazon Over eBook Monopoly
Following news of a longstanding investigation of Amazon’s control over the ebook market by the Connecticut Attorney General, class action law firm Hagens Berman sued Amazon in the US District Court of New York’s Southern District. They allege antitrust violations of the Sherman Act. The filing is both fascinating and bizarre, a kind of deja vu all over again that also sees the law firm now complaining about what they themselves helped wrought. Hagens Berman was the first mover in the earlier lawsuits against book publishers and Apple over the introduction of the agency model for pricing ebooks, filing the […]
Connecticut Has Been Investigating Amazon’s Publisher eBook Contracts — For Some Time
A decade after the ambitious Connecticut Attorney General (now US senator Richard Blumenthal) joined the ambitious Texas Attorney General (now Texas governor Greg Abbott) in helping to provide Amazon with a government-enhanced strangehold on the ebook market, a new Connecticut AG has been investigating Amazon for a while. The office of AG William Tong “has an active and ongoing antitrust investigation into Amazon regarding potentially anticompetitive terms” in its contract with major publishers. Tong’s statement said, “Our office continues to aggressively monitor this market to protect fair competition for consumers, authors, and other e-book retailers.” In the past, this office […]
Legal: A Victory for Copyright Small Claims, DMCA News, and a Netflix Settlement
Bundled into the big appropriations bill that Congress just passed is the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act, which has had the support from many in publishing for a number of years. The act establishes a Copyright Claims Board within the U.S. Copyright Office, so that creators can fight copyright violations without needing to bear the high costs and considerable complexities of litigation. The board, comprising three three Copyright Claims Officers to be appointed by the Librarian of Congress, will hear claims of up to $15,000 per claim. The bill was first introduced in late 2017; now, if the […]