Following our exclusive report that the seven publishers and Audible had filed a proposed permanent injunction with the court that would end the lawsuit over the Audible Captions feature, the AAP released a brief statement that expands the scope of the settlement. AAP president and ceo Maria A. Pallante said in a written statement: “AAP, the plaintiffs, and Audible have resolved their pending litigation. Audible has agreed that it will obtain permission from any AAP members that are in good standing with AAP before moving forward with Audible Captions for their works.” As that statement suggests, the parties reached and […]
Legal
Publishers Prevail, and Audible Will Not “Caption” Without Permission
The seven publishers who sued Audible to block their proposed Captions feature that scrolled machine-generated text along with the audio “have resolved their dispute.” The parties filed a proposed permanent injunction and request for dismissal with prejudice with Judge Valerie Caproni. The settlement represents a complete victory for the publishers — Audible cannot “caption” copyrighted content without permission. The injunction confirms Audible is prohibited from “creating, generating, reproducing, modifying, distributing, publishing, or displaying…written text derived from the audiobook versions of publishers’ works for any product or service created or offered by Audible…without express authorization from the owners or exclusive licensees […]
Jeffrey Archer Sues Curtis Brown UK For Alleged Underpayments, Breach of Duty
Earlier this month, author Jeffrey Archer filed suit in London’s High Court against his former literary agency, Curtis Brown UK, claiming they owe him £538,486 in alleged underpayments since they began representing him in 2002, plus interest on those funds of over £250,000. Archer also seeks damages for breach of duty, and a formal declaration that his representation by Curtis Brown UK ended last March. The Evening Standard ran the first report on the case six days ago. Archer’s attorney James Ramsden QC tells the court the issue was first discovered during a 2018 audit by Mitchell Rights Management. He […]
College Bookstores File Class Action Lawsuit Against McGraw-Hill, Cengage, and Pearson
A group of independent college bookstores have filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit against McGraw-Hill, Cengage, and Pearson, who together control 80 percent of the higher education textbook market, and against college bookselling chains Barnes & Noble Education and Follett, who are dubbed their “co-conspirators.” At issue are the publishers’ “inclusive access” programs, digital-only course materials that the plaintiffs say publishers sell exclusively to Barnes & Noble and Follett, cutting independent retailers out. According to the suit, the list of institutions where indies were blocked from buying and selling inclusive access in 2019 included the University of New Mexico, Eastern Kentucky […]
Briefs: Waiting On Audible Captions Settlement Details, Book Culture Store Closed for Good, and More
For those watching the dates, the parties in the publishers’ lawsuit against Audible seeking to block their Captions feature had been expected to report back to the court on the execution of their settlement agreement as of Tuesday, January 21. But in the meantime, based on the previous report that an agreement had been reached, Judge Valeri Caproni went ahead and dismissed the case with prejudice. She left it up to the parties to decide if they “wish for the Court to retain jurisdiction to enforce their settlement agreement.” In that event the settlement agreement would still be submitted to […]
Parneros Tells the Court His Side of the Story One More Time, with Feeling
Former Barnes & Noble ceo Demos Parneros filed January 15 his opposition documents against Barnes & Noble’s arguably ill-advised motion for summary judgment on two of Parneros’ three claims, defamation and breach of good faith and fair dealing. To succeed with the motion, BN has to prove that there’s no issue of fact when it comes to dismissing those claims. Parneros’ declaration and opposition memo, filed with dozens of pages of internal correspondence and depositions — alas, redacted all — purport to be evidence that BN and Riggio acted in bad faith and did indeed defame him. Parneros’ declaration recounts […]