Disney has replaced Amazon at the top of many people’s shit-lists this week when the SFWA publicly criticized the media giant for not paying royalties to Alan Dean Foster. From...Continue reading
Category: Intellectual Property
Why the Internet Archive’s The Open Library is Not a Real Library
One of the more common arguments made by defenders of the Internet Archive’s site, The Open Library, is that it is a library. They point out that it lends ebooks...Continue reading
Internet Archive is Shutting Down National Emergency Library Two Weeks Early
The Internet Archive is shutting down one of its pirate sites ahead of schedule, and they are also not being honest about the reason. Yesterday IA founder Brewster Kahle posted...Continue reading
Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post Takes Pro-Piracy Position on Internet Archive
With one of the strictest paywalls in the news industry (you can’t even view an article if you block adverts), the Washington Post takes getting paid for their work pretty...Continue reading
Four Publishers File Suit Over Internet Archive’s Pirate Site
I can’t beleive it – book publishers have given Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle exactly what he wanted. Today the AAP announced that four US publishers – HarperCollins, Wiley, Hachette,...Continue reading
You Give Up a Lot of Rights When You Post Works on Social Media, New Ruling Says
An interesting copyright ruling crossed my desk today. I don’t think it has been explained very well, so I would like to explain what it means for the average user....Continue reading
French Court Rules Consumers Have the Right to Resell Games, Bringing eBook Resale One Step Closer to Being Reality
Just about every type of publisher making digital content today uses restrictive licenses to deny your rights over the content you buy, but those restrictions are being stripped away in...Continue reading
eBook Resale Ruled Illegal in the EU (Actually, No, It Hasn’t)
For the past seven years it has been legal to resell software in Europe under what is known as the “UsedSoft” decision, a court ruling that was reaffirmed in a...Continue reading
The Biggest Plagiarism Scandal in the History of eBooks Slipped by Amazon Unnoticed
When news broke a little over two months ago that the Brazilian author person Cristiane Serruya had copied parts of Courtney Milan’s book, The Duchess War, little did we know...Continue reading
Anti-Piracy Service Blasty is Back Online After a Week’s Downtime
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 sending...Continue reading
US Supreme Court Rules Copyright Holders Must Complete Registration Before Filing Suit
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 the...Continue reading
Could The Movie “Yesterday” be Based on the Book “Enormity”? (Maybe, but Probably Not)
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 the...Continue reading
The Writers’ Union of Canada Condemns The Internet Archive’s Pirate Site, “The Open Library”
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 opinion....Continue reading
The Authors Guild Calls for a “Public Lending Right”
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 fix...Continue reading
For the First Time in Over 20 years, Copyrights Will Expire in the US
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 we...Continue reading
