Legal Archives | The Digital Reader

The Problem with eBook Piracy Spam

17 April, 201917 April, 2019DMCA, Piracy15 Comments

Try this experiment. Go to Amazon and pull up any book, any book at all as long as it has been out for at least a few months. Then, search...

At the Request of Their Union, Screenwriters are Firing Their Agents

14 April, 201914 April, 2019Contract6 Comments

An ongoing contract dispute is sending shockwaves through Hollywood, and it's going to have an interesting effect on what stories get told on your favorite show. Variety reported on...

Audible Settles Several More Class Action Lawsuits

7 April, 20197 April, 2019Amazon, Audiobook, LawsuitLeave a comment

A little over two years ago Audible was hit with several class action lawsuits that alleged that the Amazon subsidiary had engaged in bait-and-switch tactics and false advertising and...

Mayor of Baltimore Resigns in Aftermath of Books for Contracts Scandal

4 April, 20195 April, 2019Contract, Corruption, LegislationOne Comment

Authors are always looking for new ways to boost their sales. Here's one that is best left on the shelf. The Baltimore Sun reports that Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh...

Pirate Site Owner Launches GoFundMe Campaign to Raise Funds to Defend a Piracy Suit

28 March, 20194 April, 2019Piracy8 Comments

I have disliked Travis McCrea ever since he claimed his earlier ebook site, The Ultimate eBook Library, was protected by the DMCA, but now he is getting on my...

Anti-Piracy Service Blasty is Back Online After a Week’s Downtime

22 March, 201924 March, 2019Intellectual Property, Piracy4 Comments

Since 2015 Blasty has been offering an anti-piracy service where they automatically scanned the web for pirated copies of an author's work and gave authors the option of automatically...

NZ Bookstore Chain Whitcoulls Bans Jordan Peterson’s Books Following Mosque Attacks

21 March, 201921 March, 2019Censorship3 Comments

Whitcoulls in New Zealand has stopped carrying books by Jordan Peterson. According to a customer service email posted to Reddit and shared via Twitter, the retailer took this step...

US Supreme Court Rules Copyright Holders Must Complete Registration Before Filing Suit

7 March, 20197 March, 2019Intellectual Property2 Comments

It has long been established that you had to register a copyright before you could file an infringement lawsuit, but some courts had accepted merely filing the paperwork with...

Could The Movie “Yesterday” be Based on the Book “Enormity”? (Maybe, but Probably Not)

20 February, 201921 February, 2019Intellectual Property9 Comments

The publishing industry's current controversy of the week for this week revolves around an upcoming movie, and an author who is claiming implies that the movie's plot is based on...

Amazon is Still Selling Pirated POD Textbooks

14 February, 201914 February, 2019Amazon, Piracy, POD4 Comments

Over the past three years I have reported no fewer than four times about Amazon's ongoing problem with counterfeit and pirated books in its POD service, Createspace. Here is...

New York State Considers a Tax on All Internet Sales Following Projected Budget Shortfall

8 February, 20198 February, 2019Amazon, Taxes7 Comments

Remember that tax deal that New York promised Amazon to bring the retailer to Long Island? Apparently it involved money that the state didn't have. Newsday reports that New...

Maryland Considers Sales Tax on eBooks and Other Digital Goods

5 February, 20195 February, 2019Taxes2 Comments

Maryland is thinking about joining the double handful of states that collect a sales tax on the price of ebooks and other digital content. From Eversheds-Sutherland.com: The Maryland House...

The Writers’ Union of Canada Condemns The Internet Archive’s Pirate Site, “The Open Library”

23 January, 201923 January, 2019Intellectual Property, Piracy4 Comments

Hard on the heels of news that the UK Society of Authors condemning the Internet Archive for piracy comes an announcement from The Writers’ Union of Canada expressing a similar...

The Authors Guild Calls for a “Public Lending Right”

16 January, 201918 January, 2019Intellectual Property, Libraries17 Comments

The Authors Guild looked at the survey report on author income that they released a couple weeks ago, and they have come up with a solution that won't actually...

For the First Time in Over 20 years, Copyrights Will Expire in the US

20 December, 20181 January, 2019Intellectual Property3 Comments

The problem with copyright law - particularly in the US - is that people keep wanting to profit off of that which they did not create. This is why...

Category: Legal