The US government filed suit again Edward Snowden in the Eastern District Court of Virginia, seeking any and all earnings from his just published book Permanent Record, as well as earnings from his speeches, alleging breach of contract and fiduciary duty. As a former employee of both the CIA and the NSA, Snowden had signed secrecy agreements requiring pre-publication review of any book, but he “did not, at any time, submit the manuscript for Permanent Record to either the CIA or NSA for prepublication review. Nor did Snowden obtain written approval from CIA or NSA prior to sharing manuscripts with […]
Legal
Audible Says Publishers Have A Contract Dispute, Not A Copyright Infringement Case
Audible filed their reply to publishers’ request for a preliminary injunction blocking the release of the Captions feature on their work, and the company used the same arguments to file a separate motion to dismiss the case entirely. Of course if Audible actually means what they have been writing to self-published authors and independent publishers — that they “have chosen to wait until the outcome of the proceeding to release” the feature — they could save the court some effort and so stipulate as a legal promise, which would make rendering a verdict on a restraining order unnecessary. That would […]
Legal: More On Captions, and Fox, As EU Is Advised Against Resale of eBooks
Last week when we reported that Audible was telling self-published ACX authors “we have chosen to wait until the outcome of the proceeding to release” their controversial Captions feature, the company said this was “what we’re communicating to authors” and declined to answer our question about whether that policy applied to publishers as well. The Independent Book Publishers Association complained to Audible about Captions on behalf of 27 of their members, and got the exact same form e-mail response back that we quoted last week, Publishing Perspectives reports. Which suggests the entire launch, aside from public domain titles, has been […]
Dreamspinner Keeps Promising Authors to “Catch Up What Everyone Is Due” In Payments
Romance publisher Dreamspinner Press has not been paying royalties in timely fashion, authors have been reporting online, at least partially confirmed by emailed updates from the company that have been shared. Earlier this summer, authors posted on Twitter that the publisher had been inconsistent with payments for over a year, including delays in issuing both first quarter and second quarter 2019 royalties. In June, author TJ Klune posted, “Out of the last 8 quarters, this is the fourth time payments have been late, and the second in which I am owed penalties for said lateness.” (Klune had said in March […]
Fox’s CIA Memoir Has Details that Are Typically Blocked
NBC News uses the widely-disseminated galley of former CIA operative Amaryllis Fox’s forthcoming LIFE UNDERCOVER: Coming of Age in the CIA, to share extensive details from the book — meant to illustrate her inclusion of “the sort of details the CIA has censored from previous memoirs.” Among them: The agency typically does not “allow officers to name countries in which they operated, other than war zones,” let alone any discussion of nonofficial cover agents (NOCs) and they how they work; their use of secret “cover communications” software to communicate with sources around the world; and other oerational details. Fox “said […]
High-Profile CIA Memoir Still Awaiting Formal Prepublication Approval
Journalist Yashar Ali reported earlier this week that former CIA officer Amaryllis Fox — whose book LIFE UNDERCOVER: Coming of Age in the CIA is scheduled for publication on October 15 by Knopf — has not yet received written approval to publish from the CIA’s Publications Review Board. Nonetheless, a Knopf spokesperson tells PL, “We are proceeding to publication based on assurances the author has received from the PRB.” The publisher indicates on background that Fox has coordinated with the PRB throughout the process of writing the book, including obtaining verbal clearance before submitting her proposal to publishers and continuing […]