Less than a week after reports emerged that former Navy SEAL and author of NO EASY DAY (and the forthcoming NO HERO) Matt Bissonnette was under criminal investigation by the federal government, he has taken steps against his former attorneys, filing a lawsuit for malpractice in a Manhattan federal court on Wednesday. According to the AP (the full complaint is not yet available online), filing suit under his pseudonym Mark Owen, Bissonnette alleges that Kevin Podlaski at Carson Boxberger in Fort Wayne, Indiana, “gave him bad advice that tarnished his reputation, cost him his security clearance and caused him to surrender much […]
Legal
Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Sherlock Holmes Case
On Monday the Supreme Court declined to hear the final appeal from the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle, which claims the Sherlock Holmes characters remain protected by copyright because of 10 original stories published after 1923. A District Court ruled against the estate in late 2013, and this June an appeals court ruling went even further in affirming that the Sherlock Holmes characters and stories written prior to 1923 are in the public domain. The original suit was brought by Leslie Klinger, seeking clarification after the Conan Doyle Estate demanded (and was paid) $5000 in licensing fees for an anthology of new fiction featuring Sherlock Holmes […]
Judge Certifies Author Class In Suit Against Harlequin
The author class has been certified by Second Circuit District Court Judge William H. Pauley, III in the suit brought by three authors against Harlequin for underpayment on ebooks licensed to Harlequin subsidiaries. In May, the Appeals Court overturned Judge Judge Harold Baer’s dismissal of the class action suit, allowing one of four original claims to go forward. (Judge Baer passed away in May, which is why a different judge has taken over the case.) The class as approved by Judge Pauley incorporates authors in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand who signed standard Harlequin contracts […]
Oral Arguments For Apple’s Appeal Set For December 15
After a period of quiet, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has set a December 15 date for oral arguments on Apple’s appeal of Judge Denise Cote’s 2013 ruling in the federal ebook antitrust trial. The settlement reached earlier this year between Apple and the plaintiff states and consumers hinges on how the appeals court eventually rules. Apple could pay as much as $450 million if their appeal is denied, or as little as nothing if the appeal is completely reversed. Judge Cote granted preliminary approval to the settlement on August 1 and scheduled a final fairness hearing for November 21.
Krugman Takes On Amazon
You probably don’t need us to tell you about Nobel Prize-winning economist and NYT op-ed columnist Paul Krugman’s latest piece: “Amazon.com, the giant online retailer, has too much power, and it uses that power in ways that hurt America.” Indirectly answering his NYT colleague Joe Nocera, who wrote, “Amazon plays rough, so what?” and noted “American antitrust law is simply not very concerned with the fate of competitors,” Krugman asserts that for now Amazon is monopsonist rather than a monopolist. “In economics jargon, Amazon is not, at least so far, acting like a monopolist, a dominant seller with the power to […]
Appeals Court Sends Georgia State eReserves Case Back to District Court
The complicated Georgia State University court case exploring the extent to which educational fair use applies to digital excerpts continues, with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturning portions of Judge Orinda Evans’s 350-page ruling from 2012 and remanding the case back to Judge Evans. Finding that “the District Court’s fair use analysis was in part erroneous,” the Appeals Court threw out the awarding of nearly $3 million in legal fees to GSU as well. Though the name plaintiffs are Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Sage Publications, the case was brought — and funded — by the Association […]