Cengage, Macmillan Learning, McGraw Hill, and Elsevier filed a lawsuit against Google on Wednesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that the search engine prioritizes pirated textbooks through “systemic and pervasive advertising” instead of legitimate e-versions. The lawsuit states that the companies have been filing copyright infringement notices with Google since 2021, but that their efforts have been ignored. They allege that the search engine is profiting off the ads for the pirated books, while rejecting ebook ads for “legitimate sellers.” “Google has continued to advertise infringing works while simultaneously restricting ads for authentic educational works—supporting […]
Legal
Tattered Cover Sets June Auction
Bids to acquire the bankrupt Tattered Cover bookstores are due by end of day June 10, and if there are multiple bids an auction will be conducted on June 12, according to an order approved by the Bankruptcy Court. In a filing with the court, the store said they have received signed NDAs from eight interested potential bidders so far. They are hopeful that “various other parties who have expressed interest in participating in the sale” will also execute NDAs. Ever optimistic, they also tell the court, “Debtor’s management has also been discussing the sale process with the notable authors, […]
Arnaud Lagardere Steps Aside As CEO, Facing Criminal Charges
Lagardere ceo Arnaud Lagardere was questioned by a judge and charged with “vote buying, abuse of power and breach of trust, disseminating false or misleading information and failure to publish accounts,” according to Bloomberg. As a result he was required to step aside at least temporarily as the company’s ceo. “He was placed under judicial supervision with a ban on management and the obligation to provide a bond of €200,000,” a source told the FT. Judges will decide later whether the charges go to trial. The charges come as the result of an investigation that was started in 2021 — […]
Norton Sues Follett For Millions In Unpaid Sales
W.W. Norton filed suit last week against Follett Higher Education Group in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Follett owes them over $8 million. The complaint asserts that Follett, which runs college bookstores and sells Norton books, has “failed to remit timely payment on both digital and print sales and currently is many months delinquent on its obligations,” this “despite mulitple demands for payment.” The full amount owed at time of filing was “at least” $8,337,126, with an estimated additional $914,000 due by April 30. The suit states that per the agreement between […]
Five Publishers Join Suit Against Iowa Book Ban Law
Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Sourcebooks, have joined Penguin Random House in the lawsuit against the state of Iowa challenging a new book banning law. PRH and a group of four authors–Malinda Lo, Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, and Jodi Picoult–first filed suit back in November. The law, which has been called “incredibly broad,” prohibits any books describing or depicting sex from appearing in public school or classroom libraries, regardless of context. The five publishers issued a joint statement: “We as publishers are uniting in our unwavering commitment to stand with educators, librarians, students, authors, and […]
Yes, Karp Was Surprised, Too
Regarding the reporting a week ago that Meta considered buying Simon & Schuster to strip mine the catalog for LLM training, the publisher’s ceo Jonathan Karp told a NYT podcast he was just as surprised by the news as you were: “It was really quite an experience for me. So Saturday morning I was eating my breakfast and reading the New York Times…eating my Grape-Nuts… And this was total news to me! I had no idea that this conversation was going on. The story was quoting private conversations that nobody knew about. This really was news to everybody. I’ve checked. […]