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
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 […]
Corporate: Netflix Settles with Chooseco, and More
Chooseco’s lawsuit against Netflix over their interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch has been settled, as the parties informed US District Court Judge William Sessions III on Monday at a status conference. The terms remain confidential, but “the parties did tell the judge of one slightly unusual condition — the judge’s Feb. 2020 opinion denying Netflix’s dismissal motion would have to be vacated.” The judge agreed, and thus “chose to pretend he never questioned whether Netflix’s film was explicitly misleading,” as THR puts it. In February, Judge Sessions had found that the existing facts were insufficient to support dismissal. In particular, he […]
European Commission Accuses Amazon of Breaching EU Antitrust Rules
Though months later than expected, the European Commission taken another step forward in their antitrust investigations of Amazon, expressing a “preliminary view that it has breached EU antitrust rules,” set out in a statement of objections. At the same time, the EC opened a second antitrust investigation against the etailer. Building on preliminary fact-finding from over a year ago, the EC charges “the abuse of a dominant market position.” They found that Amazon uses “very large quantities” of proprietary data about Marketplace sellers who use their platform in order to compete with them directly. Which is therefore not competition at all, […]
Parneros and Barnes & Noble Settle, Ending Two Years of Litigation
Barnes & Noble and its former CEO Demos Parneros have finally agreed to settle Parneros’ breach of contract lawsuit, filed over two years ago, shortly after he was fired. The move comes just days before the scheduled pre-trial conference. An October 23 letter to the court from BN counsel Jay Cohen was filed October 26, asking the judge to dismiss all remaining claims and counterclaims with prejudice. Each party will bear its own costs and fees, but any other settlement terms — in particular, how much Parneros might be paid from his original claim for severance due of $4 million […]
DOJ Sues Wolkoff for Making First Lady Feel Bad
In the latest sweeping break from norms, the Department of Justice has fully taken over from Trump family personal attorney Charles Harder — who keeps losing every time he tries to intimidate a publisher or author. They filed suit in a Washington, DC District Court against Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, former adviser and friend to the First Lady, alleging violations of one of the flimsy nondisclosure agreements the Trump family favors. The actual charges are breach of contract and breach of fiduciary obligations, related to the publication of her book MELANIA AND ME. The DOJ tries to bring the standard it […]