Rights Management & Royalties

Citing a major uptick in Internet piracy, the Authors Guild has urged Congress to require ISPs to monitor and filter the Internet for pirated works.

French publishers saw strong foreign rights sales for several titles in 2014, and the Nobel Prize for Literature went to French novelist Patrick Modiano, who is published by Gallimard. Not an easy read, Modiano often treats themes such as identity, memory and the German occupation in France during World War II. His book Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier (So that you won't get lost in the neighborhood) which was published the week before the Nobel Prize was announced, has so far sold 305,000 copies

The argument against Amazon seems to rest on the proposition that if trad-pubs aren't awarded excess returns, over and above the actual free-market value of their products, then there will be no money to pay authors to write "serious literature," irreparably harming our culture and society. This is really a very dense proposition with all kinds of unstated and unanalyzed assumptions behind it. It would take a lengthy and complex essay to thoroughly deconstruct all these notions, and few would have the patience to read it. But it's worthwhile to quickly review some of the main issues.

For the second time in eight years of contentious litigation, three academic publishers have appealed a key fair use decision involving the use of unlicensed digitized course readings on college campuses to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Judge Orinda Evans has once again rejected the publisher plaintiffs’ bid for sweeping injunctive relief in the Georgia State University e-reserves case, and affirmed that the plaintiffs must also pay GSU's legal costs.