The Denver Book Society, the two-month old bookstore that parted ways with its cofounder in March, is now going to court to claim it didn’t infringe on another store’s trademark. The Denver bookstore, owned by Rich Garvin, is suing a Berkley, CA bookstore and wine bar called Book Society, which has been fighting with Garvin over their shared name. Book Society, which was founded in 2023, filed a trademark application for the term “book society” in August 2025 and contacted Garvin with concerns about their similar names the same month, according to the filing. The trademark application is still pending. […]
Legal
Entangled, Agent, Author Request $3.4M in Legal Fees for “Frivolous” Copyright Suit
Defendants in the copyright infringement case over Tracy Wolff’s “Crave” series—which did not plagiarize an unpublished YA manuscript, the court found—have requested that plaintiff Lynne Freeman cover their legal fees, totaling more than $3.4 million. According to a court filing, Entangled Publishing incurred fees of $2,688,481.34, Emily Sylvan Kim incurred fees of $437,934.93, and Tracy Wolff incurred fees of $281,018.92. The filing describes the lawsuit as “frivolous” and says that, had the case gone to trial, “Defendants are confident that the factfinder would have concluded that her factual allegations were as absurd as her claims of substantial similarity.” Copyright law […]
Trump Lawyer Pushes Harper on Disney Book
A lawyer for Disney has pushed back on a forthcoming book about the company and former ceo Bob Iger, Puck reports. William Morrow acquired THE HOUSE OF MOUSE by WSJ reporter Robbie Whelan in a pre-empt in 2023, with a deal describing the book as “a front row seat to the drama that has gripped Disney over the last several years, and CEO Bob Iger’s battle to defend his legacy against the executives, investors, fans, and politicians who are clamoring to contest his vision for the company.” Attorney Charles Harder has contacted Harper for information about the book’s contents, accuses […]
Appeals Court Lifts Block On Iowa Book Banning Law
On Monday, the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a block on Senate File 496, Iowa’s book banning law. The injunction has been reversed and reinstated multiple times since the law, which removes books with LGBTQ themes and references to sex acts from school libraries, first passed in 2023. Just weeks ago in March, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher reinstated an injunction against the law, after an Iowa Eighth Circuit panel reversed the original injunction in December 2023. Penguin Random House vp and associate general counsel Dan Novack said in a statement on behalf of the plaintiff group: “While […]
New Callaway Bankruptcy Filing Blames Debt on Covid-19 and “Predatory Lenders”
In a new filing in the Callaway Arts & Entertainment bankruptcy case, founder Nicholas Callaway claims that the Covid-19 pandemic and “predatory lenders” are the causes of the company’s debt. The company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York at the end of March, revealing six- and seven-figure debts to Hachette Book Group, Bob Dylan, and others. The new filing states that each Callaway book “takes years to develop” and “each published work is a piece of art in and of itself.” Someone must pay for this art; apparently independent lenders […]
PRH Germany Sues OpenAI
Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe has filed suit in a Munich court against OpenAI over copyright infringement. The publisher claims that ChatGPT reproduces images and text that are recognizable and in some cases nearly identical to those within Ingo Siegner’s “The Little Dragon Coconut” book series. PRH also says that ChatGPT “proactively suggests ways to create a print-ready manuscript, including copyright-infringing cover art and blurbs, as well as specific instructions for uploading it to self-publishing platforms,” according to a release. “There is clear evidence that Ingo Siegner’s works were unlawfully used to train the AI system and are now stored in […]