Amazon made a declaration of support for a lawsuit filed by the Washington state attorney general in Federal Court looking to overturn President Trump’s recent executive order limiting immigration from seven countries as unconstitutional. The first state to file suit, Washington is also seeking a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the order. Amazon indicated it was aware of 49 US-based employees who are from one of the countries targeted by the president’s order. In an email to employees, ceo Jeff Bezos noted, “We are working other legal options as well.” Bezos told staff, “This executive order is one we do not […]
Legal
Amazon Agrees to Break eBook Contractual Strangleholds In Europe
On Tuesday the European Commission announced proposed settlement “commitments” from Amazon to give up a variety of restrictive “parity clauses” in their ebook contracts with publishers across Europe, following a “preliminary assessment” reached on December 9, 2016 concluding “the clauses may breach EU antitrust rules and result in reduced competition among e-book distributors, and less consumer choice.” The new settlement comes quickly after Amazon’s Audible subsidiary agreed earlier this month to end its worldwide exclusivity agreements on digital audiobooks with Apple’s iTunes stores. The ebook settlement includes the publication of the EC’s “preliminary view” that Amazon “may violate EU antitrust rules” […]
Canada Reaches eBook Settlement with Apple and Three Publishers, Pursues HarperCollins
Canada’s Competition Bureau reached modest new consent agreements with Apple and three major publishers — Hachette, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster — related to the introduction of agency ebook pricing there. HarperCollins declined to settle, and the Commissioner of Competition is seeking harsher restrictions on the company’s ebook pricing as a result. Apple will drop all most favored nations clauses from their sales agreements with major ebook publishers (including Penguin Random House) for 3 years. The settling publishers agree to drop most favored nations clauses from their agreements with all ebooksellers in Canada for 3 years, and they will not “restrict, limit […]
Colting Sued by PRH, S&S, and Literary Estates Over ‘Kinderguides’ of Classic Novels
More than a decade after being sued over an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye, Fredrik Colting is the co-defendant in a new lawsuit over turning four classic novels into illustrated children’s books without permission. The complaint, filed in New York federal court Thursday by Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and various literary estates, asserts that Colting and co-defendant Melissa Medina have infringed copyright on Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. The plaintiffs assert in their 42-page […]
Class Action Suit Filed Against All Romance eBooks
The sudden shutdown of romance ebook publishing and distribution company All Romance at the end of 2016 left many authors and publishers shortchanged, with an email from the company offering 10 cents on the dollar for distributed books for sales up through December 27 and nothing but reversion for books they published. In response, author Brenda Cothern has filed suit seeking class-action status against the company and its owner, Lori James. The complaint seeks damages in excess of $15,000 for “unpaid commissions, as well as injunctive relief to enjoin the defendants from misappropriating the ebooks which had been entrusted to them.” The […]
Rakuten Kobo Acquires the Tolino Tech Platform from Deutsche Telekom
Rakuten Kobo announced on Tuesday they have signed contracts to acquire the Tolino ebook technology platform serving the German-language ebook market from founding partner Deutsche Telekom at the end of January 2017, pending approval from the German Federal Cartel Office. (That paperwork was filed December 22.) Kobo will join the three bookseller partners Hugendubel, Thalia and Weltbild. CEO Michael Tamblyn says in the announcement, “Together with our partners from the German book trade, we intend to continue to enhance the tolino ecosystem for its many dedicated customers. This acquisition allows us to bring Rakuten Kobo’s experience with collaborating with book retailers around […]