Part two of our year-end legal round-up compiles all the major stories not involving AI. The cases we followed in 2025 concerned book bans; the botched auction of Diamond Comics’ assets; the sexual assault case against Neil Gaiman; a certain “tedious” filing from the president of the United States; and more. Book Bans Book bans were once again a big topic this year. Some of the many legal headlines included: a US District Court ruling that Texas’s “READER Act” is unconstitutional; a Missouri book banning law being struck down; and SCOTUS’s decision not to hear an appeal in the Texas […]
Legal
2025: The Year In Legal News, Part 1
Publishing news was dominated by lawsuits this year, particularly those related to AI. The biggest legal stories of 2025 involved tech’s mass copyright infringement of thousands of books to train LLMs. Luckily, for authors and publishers, there were some victories for copyright. Accordingly, we have broken up our roundup of our legal reporting this year into two sections, beginning with lawsuits concerning AI. First US judgement on AI copyright infringement In February, we saw the first judgment in the US on an AI copyright case when Thompson Reuters won its case against tech company Ross Intelligence. Ross Intelligence copied TR’s […]
In Meta Suit, Authors Aim to Amend Class, Add File Torrenting to Complaint
In their class action suit against Meta for copyright infringement, the author plaintiffs asked the court add to their complaint the fact that Meta torrented their books. They also requested narrowing the class to those with registered copyrights. As the case has gone on, plaintiffs discovered that Meta torrented their books from pirate sites to train the company’s Llama AI tool. The peer-to-peer filing sharing, which they did via BitTorrent, means that as Meta was downloading vast amounts of data from these shadow libraries, they were also making copies and sharing it with other BitTorrent users. The plaintiffs now argue that […]
Lownie Sues S&S for Failing to Publish Prince Andrew Book
Agent and author Andrew Lownie is suing Simon & Schuster for breach of contract for declining to publish his biography of former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York. According to a complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, Gallery acquired the book in February for $250,000, paying a third of the advance. Lownie had already sold it to Harper Collins UK. VP, editorial director Aimee Bell wrote Lownie with editorial notes in April, copying his UK editor Arabella Pike, saying, “The material is all here—we just need to shape it a […]
SCOTUS Won’t Hear TX Library Case, Upholds Book Bans
The Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal in the Texas book banning case Little v. Llano, upholding a Court of Appeals ruling that sides with the county and allows book removals. In 2021, Llano County officials removed 17 books about race and slavery, LGBTQIA+ identities, and “butt and fart books” from the public library. The bans were overturned and books were protected by two courts, which ruled that government officials could not remove books based on their content. But in May, a full en banc ruling by the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of appeals reversed those decisions, […]
Lawyers in Anthropic Case Request $300M in Legal Fees
In line with their initial proposal, lawyers for the author plaintiffs in the Anthropic copyright suit have formally requested that the court grant them $300 million in legal fees–20 percent of the $1.5 billion settlement. Class counsel argues in a filing that this amount is “reasonable,” since generally the benchmark for legal fees is 25 percent, then adjusted up or down by the court based in part on “the extent to which class counsel achieved exceptional results for the class.” The attorneys note that “the Settlement achieved here is not just exceptional—it is historic.” A significant question is whether Judge Alsup […]