Earlier this month Guinness World Records filed suit in a Manhattan Federal Court against Scholastic, over their forthcoming Book of World Records 2018, arguing that it “obviously copies and incorporates the trade dress of Guinness World Records 2018, and infringes on GWR’s copyrights and trade dress rights in its book.” Saying that Scholastic’s cover “is nearly identical” to Guinness’s, they charge that “Scholastic’s publication of its book constitutes willful copyright infringement and unfair competition, and is a transparent attempt to trade on the fame and goodwill associated with Guinness World Record brand books.” Guinness asks the court for injunctions, as […]
Legal
Talk Isn’t Cheap, But At Least It’s A Little Easier at Frankfurt This Year
Press conferences, author guests, and planned events notwithstanding, the core of the Frankfurt Book Fair for trade visitors remains rights sales and renewing international relationships. For many people, Frankfurt is also very much about habit and tradition, essentially the same show every year, but with new titles: The same party schedule, the same dinner dates and venues, the same roster of key appointments, the same layout of stands (and unfortunately, the same wealth of smokers when you try to get some air). But there’s one interesting thing that’s different this year, though it may not be obvious: This is the […]
One More Round of eBook Settlement Credits Coming Later This Month
As we suggested in June, the Apple ebook settlement fund of $400 million still had a substantial remainder of unclaimed funds after the primary distribution year expired. Between the Apple funds and the previous publisher settlements, there is still $84 million in consumer compensation credits available. so in early September Judge Denise Cote agreed to another distribution of the remaining funds. Counsel for the consumer class Hagens Berman tells PL that the new round of credits will be issued as of October 18, with the major ebooksellers preparing notifications to send to their customers. So another burst of free money […]
Judge Hands Down Decisive KinderGuides Opinion
In the copyright infringement case brought against the publishers of KinderGuides — “early learning guides” that essentially adapted classic works of literature for younger readers — Judge Jed Rakoff issued the opinion to explain his finding over a month ago granting summary judgment to the plaintiffs. On August 15, Judge Rakoff issued a permanent injunction to block the sale of the infringing KinderGuides and destroy all remaining inventory. Subsequently, the plaintiffs have withdrawn their request for summary judgment finding that defendants acted willfully, and have further withdrawn with prejudice their claims for statutory damages, “to avoid the time and expense […]
S&S Sharpens Reply to Milo
Attorneys for Simon & Schuster updated their motion to dismiss Milo Yiannopoulos’s breach of contract lawsuit, while noting that Milo’s own revision of his complaint was “filed on the eve of the Preliminary Conference.” In their new filing, the publisher more closely binds the $80,000 first advance that Yiannopoulos did not repay along with his acceptance of the reversion of rights to his manuscript, which he subsequently self-published, as constituting his agreement to S&S’s cancellation of the contract. They underscore that Milo’s attorney only rejected the cancellation in writing months later, after he was actively exploiting the publishing rights: “Yiannopoulos accepted […]
Lawyers Free Pepe the Frog From Alt-Right Merchandising
Attorneys Louis Tompros and Don Steinberg at WilmerHale, working pro bono, have helped creator Matt Furie save his Pepe the Frog comic character — he publishes with Fantagraphics — from “misappropriation [that] in any way that espouses racism, white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Nazism, or any other form of hate.” In the process, they have quashed the planned release in November by Post Hill Press of the infringing self-published book The Adventures of Pepe and Pede by Eric Hauser. The lawyers say in a press release that Hauser “admitted” to copyright infringement, and they “were able to negotiate [settlement] over the […]