An Illinois parent has filed suit against Pearson in an Illinois Federal Court, seeking class action status and accusing the textbook company of negligence in a data breach that affected a million students in 13,000 schools across the US. The cyberattack on Pearson’s AIMSweb occurred in November 2018, and was apparently detected by the FBI in March 2019. The suit charges that “even after learning of the data breach in March” from the FBI, Pearson “concealed that fact from impacted schools for four months, failing to disclose it until late July 2019.” Even then, the suit charges, “they concealed the […]
Legal
Briefs
Andi Richman has joined Baker & Taylor Publisher Services as director of national accounts. She previously held national account positions at Guilford Press, Hay House, Harlequin and Dorling Kindersley. Matt Warner has joined as director of marketing. He most recently held senior positions at Barnes & Noble.com and Nook. Legal Retired Navy Commander Guy Snodgrass is the latest former government official to find his forthcoming book delayed because of an extended review process — and the latest to sue over that delay. The former communications director and speechwriter for James Mattis when he was Secretary of Defense argues the DOD has […]
Audible Will Delay Captions On Some Publisher Titles As First Court Hearing Is Postponed
Audible agreed that it will not enable the Captions feature “for all audiobooks for which Publishers own, or are the exclusive licensee of, the text or audiobook rights” until a Federal Court rules on the publishers’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Note importantly, however, that “Publishers” in this order is limited to the seven named plaintiffs who brought the suit only. Having given that promise, formalized as an order of the court, the parties agreed to move the expedited hearing — initially set for September 5, given Audible’s intention to launch Captions on September 10. But the timetable remains quick […]
Hearing Set For Publishers’ Lawsuit, As Audible Responds with Disingenuous Statement
The Federal Court for New York’s Southern District agreed that the seven AAP publishers filing suit against Audible on Friday “demonstrated good cause for the setting of an expedited briefing schedule” due to Audible’s plan to launch Captions on or about September 10. A hearing was set before Judge Paul Crotty for the afternoon of September 5 for arguments on issuing a preliminary injunction blocking the new feature. In the meantime, Audible has until the end of the day Wednesday to file papers replying to the suit, and publishers have until September 3 to respond to those arguments. Late Friday, […]
AAP Sues Audible to Block Captions Initiative
When publishers first objected to Audible’s Captions initiative, which shows listeners a computer-generated transcription of the text of an audiobook as they listen, the company’s unsympathetic response was effectively, “we think this is great; if you object, you’ll have to sue us.” On Friday, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) did just that, filing suit in New York’s Southern District, asking the court to block the feature. AAP members Chronicle Books, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Scholastic, and Simon & Schuster are all named as plaintiffs. With Audible expected to formally launch Captions on September 10, […]
Briefs
People At Random House Children’s, Laura Hernandez joins as associate manager, digital marketing. She was previously marketing coordinator at DK. Nicole Valdez joins as marketing & publicity manager for Random House Graphic. She was previously publishing publicity specialist for DC Entertainment. Carol Ly has joined the middle-grade design team as senior designer. She was previously senior designer for Macmillan Children’s. Pep Carrera has joined ProQuest as president of its books business unit, which provides “flexible models and integrated technologies that make the acquisition and management of books cost-effective and efficient.” He was president and coo at Ingram’s VitalSource. Distribution McSweeney‘s […]