As the US Copyright Office considers the thousands of comments on “copyright law and policy issues raised by artificial intelligence systems,” the Federal Trade Commission drew attention with a press release to their own position on generative AI in the marketplace — suggesting the agency stands ready to protect creators from unfair competition and consumers from non-transparent machine-generated content. From a pure copyright perspective, resolving issues around fair use could take months to formulate and legislate, or more likely years to litigate, while the world changes before creators’ eyes. Importantly, the FTC states more definitively what creators have been waiting […]
Bertelsmann Sales Down Slightly in Q3
Bertelsmann briefly announced results a third quarter sales update, with revenues of €4.9 billion ($4.9 billion), compared to €5.1 billion in the same quarter last year. The company expects a “moderate” increase in full-year sales with a stable operating profit and a slight decline in EBITDA, following the sale of their shares in Majorel. As usual, there are very few divisional specifics. Looking at the first nine months together, they highlight Penguin Random House’s success from early in the year, with Prince Harry’s SPARE still their top-selling title. The only third quarter releases mentioned are picture books. “Despite an overall […]
Author Removes Self-Published Series “Hades Hangman” From Sale
Indie author Tillie Cole says she has taken down her popular Hades Hangman series from online ebookstores after readers criticized a love story in book seven, DARKNESS EMBRACED, centering on a member of the Ku Klux Klan. That book was first published in January 2019. Reviews of the book posted on Twitter describe the romantic male protagonist as “heir of the Texas Ku Klux Klan,” while the female protagonist is the “daughter of a Mexican cartel boss.” Readers also flagged racial slurs used in previous installments of the series. Books one through five are still available on Audible and at least […]
Spotify’s New Audiobook Plan Launches In The US
Spotify’s new audiobook plan, which grants premium subscribers 15 hours of audiobook access per month with no extra charge, has launched in the US. The same program launched in the UK and Australia in October. The company writes in a release that subscribers now have access to a catalog that includes more than 200,000 audiobooks. As PL previously noted, the big change for the industry is Spotify’s effort to pay creators based on customers’ listening time rather than per title, though payment terms remain opaque. The company began offering audiobooks just over a year ago, on a pay-per-title basis.
People 11/7
Bel Banta has joined Harper as senior publicist. She was previously at Viking.
RIP WSJ Bestseller Lists
On November 4 the Wall Street Journal published their final set of book bestseller lists licensed from Circana Bookscan (for the sales week ending October 28). After 14 years of licensing Bookscan data, Dow Jones decided to let their agreement expire. The newspaper began using Bookscan print book sales data for their bestseller lists in 2009 and in late 2011 Bookscan started supplying them with ebook sales data for inclusion in the WSJ charts as well.