Closing Romance book magazine RT Book Reviews, as well as the RT Booklovers Convention, are shutting down effective immediately. Founder Kathryn Falk announced at the latest convention in Reno that she and her husband, co-owner Kevin Rubin are retiring and the Reno convention would be the last. The magazine will not produce any more issues, but will remain available online for a year, at which point it will be removed. Falk writes in a message to readers, “After 38 years, I am retiring and ending my participation in publishing. It was a great privilege to have a lifetime experience in […]
Legal
Cengage Authors Sue Over New Subscription Model
Textbooks authors David Knox and Caroline Schacht filed suit in the Southern District of New York against Cengage, alleging that the publisher’s forthcoming Cengage Unlimited subscription model breaks the “fundamental bargain struck” in their publishing agreements, and is designed “for the specific purpose of retaining a greater share of its revenue stream (and therefore reducing author royalty payments).” The plaintiffs seek class action status for their suit. More broadly, they also allege that since emerging from bankruptcy protection in 2014, “Cengage has trampled on its authors’ rights.” They charge that the company has diluted authors’ royalties on courseware packages, by […]
Harper Lee Estate, Scott Rudin Settle Mockingbird Lawsuit
A Broadway production of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is expected to go forward after Lee’s estate and the play’s producer, Scott Rudin, settled a pair of lawsuits Thursday. The NYT reports that both sides “issued a four sentence statement saying that they had ‘amicably settled’ the litigation, but offering no specifics,” with both parties filing a settlement notice with the Southern District of New York court indicating the suit was “dismissed with prejudice.” As such it remains unclear if there will be changes to Aaron Sorkin’s script or if the production will go ahead as originally intended. The […]
Mockingbird Lawsuit Moves to New York
The two court cases stemming from a planned Broadway theatrical adaptation of Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, filed in two separate jurisdictions, will proceed in the Southern District of New York. A Federal court judge in Alabama ruled Monday that Tonja Carter’s original suit against producer Scott Rudin should transfer to the Southern District of New York, where Rudin’s company, Rudinplay Inc., had filed a countersuit against the Harper Lee Estate. Judge William H. Steele’s 19-page ruling denied Rudinplay’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that jurisdiction in Alabama did not apply.The producer “well knew that it was forming […]
The Last Gasp: Apple Agrees To Settle Shareholder eBook Complaint
The long-running saga of the Department of Justice vs. Apple over antitrust issues with ebook pricing had one last gasp. Two years after Apple paid out more than $450 million in settlement credits in the original case (which was settled two years prior, in 2014), the company has settled a subsequent derivative shareholder complaint, originally lodged one month after the 2014 settlement was finalized. That agreement primarily requires Apple to continue a variety of antitrust training and compliance processes that the company had initially (and unsuccessfully) resisted from the government. Apple will comply with an antitrust monitor through 2022; modify […]
Legal: Writers Will Receive Money From Class Action Suit, 17 Years Later; Mockingbird Suits Continue In Two Places
It took only 17 years, but finally, the Literary Works in Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation has culminated this week with the issuance of settlement checks to nearly 2,500 freelance journalists totaling $9.5 million. The class action lawsuit, launched in 2001, claimed copyright infringement when about 600,000 newspaper articles were licensed to databases without the writers’ prior knowledge or permission. “We’ve been at the finish line for this lawsuit for a very long time, and so it is great that it’s finally happening,” Authors Guild president (and one of the named plaintiffs) James Gleick told the NYT. “But it’s also certainly a […]