Former Barnes & Noble CEO Demos Parneros’ determination to dispute the bookseller’s claim he was a “faithless servant” has now resulted in a formal motion: On December 21, after some scheduling confusion regarding an intended postponement, his counsel filed the motion to dismiss BN’s second counterclaim against him. (As for the other two counterclaims, counsel heeded Judge John Koetl’s strongly-established concerns about a motion to dismiss.) Attorney Anne Clark’s 15-page filing leverages legal precedent to dispute BN’s claim that Parneros was a “faithless servant” who sabotaged negotiations with a potential buyer of the struggling company. While Parneros disputes the facts in BN’s […]
Legal
Thousands of Books Set to Enter the Public Domain on January 1
Santa has one more delivery on the way: On January 1, 2019, all works published in the United States in 1923 will enter the public domain. The list of books, movies, and songs numbers more than 1000, based on research conducted by Duke Law School’s Center for the Public Domain — and includes work by authors such as Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley, and Edith Wharton. This is the first mass-release of works into the public’s hands in 21 years, thanks to a provision of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act that froze the release of works created prior to […]
Tate Publishing Owners Take Plea Agreement, Will Provide Restitution to Defrauded Authors
Ryan and Richard Tate, the ceo and founder respectively of Tate Publishing & Enterprises, accepted a plea agreement with the Oklahoma Attorney General at a hearing yesterday. The Tates were charged with 38 felonies and six misdemeanors for fraudulent business practices that “swindled more than 2,200 individuals out of their property and money they paid to have their music or books published or produced through the companies.” Under the deal, the brothers’ sentences are suspended but they will spend the next two decades on probation and face “revocation” and “prison time” if they fail to comply with the agreement. They will […]
Briefs
At Lerner Publishing Group, Rachel Zugschwert has been promoted to vp, marketing, and Greg Hunter to editorial director, Graphic Universe, both effective January 1, 2019. Forthcoming Zadie Smith‘s first short story collection GRAND UNION will be published by Penguin Press in fall 2019, and in the UK by Hamish Hamilton on October 3, 2019. It will contain ten new stories, as well as 10 more of “her very best, drawn from two decades of remarkable short fiction.” Initiatives Boston creative writing center GrubStreet has been selected by the city to open a new “civic-cultural space” on the first and second floors of Fifty […]
Accountant Who Stole From Donadio & Olson Given Two Years In Prison; Agency Declared Bankruptcy
One of the year’s stranger — and more unsettling — capers came to a close on Monday, as former Donadio & Olson bookkeeper Darin Webb was sentenced. After pleading guilty in July to one count of wire fraud for defrauding the agency and its clients of $3.3 million, District Judge Edgardo Ramos sentenced Webb to two years in prison. He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release thereafter, plus “a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $3,300,000, and restitution in an amount to be determined.” The government had recommended a stiffer sentence of 51 to 63 months in […]
Once Again, Court Thoroughly Rejects ReDigi’s Scheme for “Used” Digital Goods Marketplace
Just as a District Court unequivocally and thorough called (now bankrupt) start-up ReDigi’s efforts to establish a scheme and marketplace for reselling “used” copies of copyrighted digital files of music (and thus potentially ebooks, as well as video, games and software) copyright infringement in 2013, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ratified that decision in this cockroach of a legal case. The Appeals Court similarly dismisses without hesitation ReDigi’s various arguments. “Their transfer process” to move the “used” files around inherently “creates a reproduction, and that is a copyright violation,” pure and simple. Their arguments for fair use did […]