Brad Stone of the NYT read the galley for Ben Mezrich’s July release THE ACCIDENTAL BILLIONAIRES, about the founding of Facebook, “in two sittings.” While “Doubleday has classified the book as nonfiction, but it has a novelistic gloss that tries to compensate for the absence of comprehensive reporting.” (The paper notes that “Mezrich appears to have had access to only one primary source in Facebook’s complex founding story: Eduardo Saverin, one of the Harvard friends of Mark Zuckerberg, a founder of the site.) Doubleday publicist Todd Doughty apparently agrees, saying “this is not reportage. It is big juicy fun.” Mezrich’s […]
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Free Indeed; Anderson's New Book Lifts Numerous Passages from Wikipedia
The Virginia Quarterly Review convincingly reproduces a number of incidences in Chris Anderson’s new book FREE: The Future of a Radical Price that reproduce nearly verbatim portions of a number of Wikipedia articles. Anderson admits fault via e-mail, saying “all those are my screwups after we decided not to run notes as planned, due to my inability to find a good citation format for web sources.” He intended to “do a write-through” of “source material without an individual author to credit (as in the case of Wikipedia),” and says that “obviously in my rush at the end I missed a […]
Judge Blocks Unauthorized 60 Years Later In Temporary Order
US District Judge Deborah Batts issued a temporary restraining order preventing publication for at least the next 10 days of “JD California” (Frederik Colting’s) book (originally called a sequel to Catcher in the Rye), finding “substantial similarities” to the original novel. She said “I’ll issue a written decision as quickly as I can.” Batts was highly dubious in the initial hearing that Colting’s book offers any protected commentary or parody. “Let me be clear,” she said. “I am having difficulty seeing that it exists” at all. Colting’s attorney Edward Henry Rosenthal “did not dispute that the character is meant to […]
Salinger Defendants Claim "Commentary and Criticism"
Attorneys at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz filed papers on behalf of Fredrik Colting and his distributor asking the court to deny JD Salinger’s request for an injunction blocking publication of 60 YEARS LATER — Coming through the Rye. They claim the book is ” a complex and undeniably transformative exposition” about JD Salinger and “his best known creation Holden Caulfield” that is “protected parody, containing important commentary and criticism.” Now that he has a lawyer, Fredrik Colting has backtracked on how he positions the work, saying that “while my earlier book cover and some promotional material characterized 60 YEARS […]
Estate of Willy the Wizard Author Sues Bloomsbury, Claims Potter Infringes, and More Legal News
The estate of children’s book author Adrian Jacobs has sued Bloomsbury in England’s High Court, alleging that JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire “copied substantial parts” of Jacobs’ THE ADVENTURES OF WILLY THE WIZARD–No 1 Livid Land. The estate “is also seeking a Court order against JK Rowling herself for pre-action disclosure in order to determine whether to join her as a defendant to the…action.” They also allege that when Jacobs was first seeking representation, he submitted to Rowling’s agent Christopher Little. Apparently both books feature wizards who compete in contests and have to rescue humans. While […]
Justice Department Asks Publishers for Information on Google
Two publishing executives confirm to the WSJ that they have received “a civil investigative demands” from the Justice Department as it requests more information as part of their evaluation of the pending Google Book Search settlement. An anonymous executive says, “They are looking at all aspects of the proposed settlement. It shouldn’t be overblown.” Attorney for the Authors Guild Michael Boni subsequently tells the NYT that CIDs have gone to the Guild, the AAP, Google, and a number of publishers. “They are asking for a lot of information,” Boni says. “It signals that they are serious about the antitrust implications […]