Cassandra Clare‘s lawyer, John Cahill of Cahill Associates, issued a statement Thursday afternoon responding to Sherrilyn Kenyon’s trademark and copyright infringment lawsuit filed against Clare late last week. “Cassie was both surprised and disappointed that Ms. Kenyon would file this baseless lawsuit, a decade after the debut of Cassie’s books. Kenyon is wrong when she claims that Cassandra Clare or her publisher made any agreements about using ‘shadowhunters.’ Cassie never gave Kenyon any assurances regarding this and, although she would have preferred to resolve any concerns that Ms. Kenyon has or may have had, Ms. Kenyon never contacted or spoke […]
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People, Etc.
At Atria, Ariele Fredman has been promoted to assistant director of publicity; Kathryn Santora has been promoted to senior publicist; Tory Lowy moves up to publicist; and Emily Bamford is now associate publicist. The Texas Book Festival has hired Julie Wernersbach as literary director, starting later this month. She has been marketing director at BookPeople for the past five years. Tammy Brown joins the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators as director, community marketing and engagement, based in Los Angeles, starting March 1. Bonnie Bader work for the organization as a consultant, with the title of publishing advisor, based in New York. Kat Meyer recently joined the Book Industry Study […]
Commerce Department Advises Keeping First Sale Doctrine for Print Only
The Commerce Department’s Internet Policy Task Force issued a white paper on first sale (as well as remixes and statutory damages) that will find favor, or at least relief, among publishers, if not with libraries. The simple conclusion that is that paper advises leaving the first sale doctrine as is and not extending it to digital products, standing with the Copyright Office’s previous findings from way back in 2001. For now, they found that the marketplace is working well in using digital to extend new benefits and options to consumers and unlike the folks over at Justice, Commerce says, “we […]
People, Etc.
Fiona Kennedy is leaving her position as managing director and publisher of Orion Children’s “to pursue other interests.” The company confirms to the Bookseller that “a small number of roles” were eliminated over the last year following the consolidation of Hachette UK’s three children’s lines into a single unit. Also at Hachette UK, the company is closing their digital-only vintage crime imprint The Murder Room, and publisher Julia Silk will leave the company at the end of January after 10 years at Orion. In a statement Orion said, “After three years, it is clear that the market is not as buoyant as we’d anticipated […]
Supreme Court Will Consider Apple’s Appeal on February 19
When the Supreme Court next convenes for conference on February 19, one of the cases it will consider is Apple’s petition to have the high court hear its appeal of the guilty verdict in the ebook antitrust case. Apple had responded one more time, on January 15, to the Department of Justice’s end of year opposition to their appeal.
Authors Guild Asks Supreme Court to Review Google Books Ruling
As expected, and against heavy odds, the Authors Guild asked the Supreme Court to hear their appeal of the Google Books case. That request comes after sweeping defeats at the District Court and Appeals Court in the Second Circuit, where judges had little or no hesitation in declaring Google’s book scanning a “transformative” fair use. A related case against the HathiTrust — built on Google book scans — was dropped by the Guild after similar losses at the District and Appeals Court level. In their petition to the Supreme Court, attorneys for the Authors Guild position the case as in […]