Posts tagged with law
Just take the L, son.
Vulture just posted a update on the latest controversy involving Jay Asher (author of the popular YA book 13 Reasons Why). The essay is worth reading in full, but here's a very brief summary: in 2017, Asher was accused of several instances of sexual harassment. He had been invited to be a guest speaker at an event sponsored by...
Shady, Netflix
The Verge recently posted an article about Chooseco Publishing (the company behind the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books) suing Netflix over its interactive Black Mirror episode "Bandersnatch"...
Boooo
Another day, another depressing Stan Lee-related lawsuit. According to the BBC, Lee is suing Pow! Entertainment, the entertainment company he co-founded, for one billion dollars, alleging that...
Toys, yes; Video games, no
According to THR, Warner Bros. and the Tolkien Estate have "amicably resolved" their five-year-long dispute over the digital exploitation of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. As far as I can tell, this seems to be a fight over merchandising...
Update!
There's more news on the mysterious recent shutdown of AllRomanceEbooks. I was clearly not alone in thinking it sounded hinky: according to the website Writer Beware, a class action lawsuit...
Best of luck, guys.
The Intercept recently posted a fascinating article about the difficulties surrounding children's book publishing in Russia. If the article's information is accurate, Russian publishers are working in a minefield: there is a 2010 law that details the government's MANY thoughts on how best to...
I'm sure he really needs the money.
According to Page Six, former Sony CEO Tommy Mottola is accused of running off with a $150,000 advance for a book he never actually wrote, according to a lawsuit filed by Hachette Book Group yesterday...
#TeamKenyon
I read with interest that author Sherrilyn Kenyon is suing author Cassandra Clare, accusing her of copyright and trademark infringement and false advertising. I have never read one of Kenyon's novels, and our (limited) coverage of Cassandra Clare has been...
Oh, you can afford it.
Sometimes I almost enjoy Apple's sheer nerve. According to Reuters, the tech giant has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to toss an appellate court decision from earlier this year that found Apple conspired with five publishers to artificially jack up e-book prices...
One Fish Two Fish graces the highest court in the land
In other political/literary news, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan recently cited Dr. Seuss's One Fist Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish in her dissenting response to Yates v. United States. It's not like Dr. Seuss really needs the publicity, but it's nice to see him get a shout-out nonetheless, and from such an impressive source...
Complicated
There's an interesting censorship case facing the British Royal Courts of Justice: according to the Guardian, a "well-known performer" has been prevented from publishing a memoir because his ex-wife fears that the information featured in the book will cause harm to their child...
Expect many new reprints
According to The New York Times, Circuit Judge Richard Posner, writing for a three-judge panel from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, has declared that most (but not all) of Arthur Conan Doyle's dozens of Sherlock Holmes stories are now part of the public domain...
Awkward!
CNN informs me that reclusive To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee is suing the Monroe County Heritage Museum for trademark infringement. Lee's suit hinges on the argument...
Legal wrangling
This is a depressing story, so I hope she wins: 87-year-old To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee says that her literary agent Samuel Pinkus (the son-in-law of her long-time agent Eugene Winick) took advantage of her poor health to trick her into signing over the copyright of her book to him...
Seriously overdue notices
The website The Smoking Gun recently posted an article about the New York publishing house Penguin Group. Apparently, Penguin has filed lawsuits this week against several prominent authors who have failed to deliver books for which they received hefty contractual advances...
Juicy!
The New York Times posted a fascinating article last week about the legal battle raging over the Archie comic book empire. I had no idea the behind-the-scenes drama at that comic was so heated, but...
A tough sell
NPR has posted a helpful article explaining the Justice Department's newly-filed price-fixing suit against Apple Inc. and a large group of publishers, including...
The sincerest form of flattery
The company that represents the Diary of a Wimpy Kid brand recently won a temporary restraining order against the publisher of two Wimpy Kid-parodying graphic novels: the "Wimpy Zombie" series by ...
The joys of legalese
For those of you interested in the nine(!) Wizard of Oz-related film projects currently in development, there's an interesting Hollywood Reporter article about Warner Bros.'s recent legal victory ...