In a lengthy hearing, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York heard oral arguments in the Internet Archive’s appeal of a lower court finding that their copying and lending of digital copies of books (through their invented practice of Controlled Digital Lending) infringes copyright. In his ruling, District Court Judge John Koeltl found “no case or legal principle supports that notion. Every authority points the other direction.” In keeping with Judge Koeltl’s ruling, which was rooted in opinions from the Court of Appeals in such significant cases as Google Books, Hathi Trust, and ReDigi, the three-judge panel appeared […]
Legal
Self-Published Author Sues Amazon Over Audiobook Monopoly
Romance author Christine DeMaio, who writes as CD Reiss, has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Amazon, claiming that the retail giant’s dominance in audiobook sales eliminates competition and leads to supracompetitive pricing for self-published authors. The suit is filed by class-action law firm Hagens Berman, which was the first to bring the ebook price fixing suit against publishers and Apple in 2011. (Since then, less successfully, the firm has filed suits against Amazon and the large trade publishers over the retailer’s ebook monopoly.) The filing states that Amazon, through the Audible ACX program, charges independent authors a fee […]
TX Book Ban Overturned, Some Titles Returned to Library
On Thursday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas upheld part of preliminary injunction returning some banned books to a local library, ruling that “Government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree.” The suit was brought by seven patrons of the Llano County, TX library system, who asserted that the government’s 2021 removal of books based on their content “violated their First Amendment right to access information and ideas.” Seventeen books were removed from the library, including “‘butt and fart’ books,” “young adult […]
Academic Publishers Sue Google Over Advertising of Pirated Textbooks
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 […]
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 — […]