Advocacy
Addendum: Author Economics of the Odyssey-Amazon Agreement
July 26, 2010. We don't know the details of the Odyssey-Amazon agreement, but we can make some informed guesses. The agreement is most likely under the agency model, with Amazon paying Odyssey 70% of the retail price of the books. Wylie and Odyssey are together taking a typical agent's commission as compensation: 10 or 15% of the 70% received from Amazon. In round figures, this means that the author receives 60 to 63% of the retail price of the book.For comparison, a typical contract with a traditional publisher pays e-book royalties of 25% of net proceeds. If the e-book is sold under the agency model, the author's share is 25% of 70%, or 17.5% of the retail price of the book. After the agent's commission, the author receives roughly 15 to 16% of the retail price of the book. More...
Wylie-Amazon: Publishers Have Largely Brought This on Themselves. Amazon Exclusivity Is Major Concern.
July 26, 2010. Thursday's announcement that the Wylie Agency, through its new publishing arm, Odyssey Editions, has a deal with Amazon to exclusively distribute at least 20 books in electronic form has shaken the industry. The 20 books include many important 20th century American works, including Invisible Man, Lolita, Portnoy's Complaint, Updike's Rabbit novels, The Adventures of Augie March, The Stories of John Cheever, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. These works are all in print and all, apparently, governed by old publishing contracts in which the authors didn't expressly grant electronic rights to the print publishers.
Random House, which holds the print rights to many of these titles, reacted Thursday afternoon by disputing that authors retained electronic rights to these books and saying that it would not do business with Wylie for English-language works "until this situation is resolved."
This is the most important development in electronic publishing since Apple entered the market offering publishers an "agency model" for selling e-books. Several aspects of the Wylie/Amazon/Random House entanglement merit comment:
1. Authors retain e-rights in standard publishing contracts unless they expressly grant those rights to the publisher, as we've consistently said and as a federal court held in Random House v. Rosetta Books. It's fine and proper for these authors and their heirs to exercise those rights, and we applaud the Wylie Agency for finding a way to make it happen.
2. That said, when an agency acts as publisher, serious potential conflicts of interest immediately come to mind. ...
3. That the Wylie/Odyssey agreement is reportedly exclusive raises many questions and concerns. Authors should have access to all responsible vendors of e-books. Moreover, Amazon's power in the book publishing industry grows daily. ...
Regardless of the exclusivity issues, any direct agreement between a literary agency and Amazon is troubling. Amazon has, time and again, wielded its clout in the industry ruthlessly, with little apparent regard for its relationships with authors or publishers or, for that matter, antitrust rules. ...
4. To a large extent, publishers have brought this on themselves. This storm has long been gathering. Literary agencies have refused to sign e-rights deals for countless backlist books with traditional publishers, even though they and their clients, no doubt, see real benefits in having a single publisher handle the print and electronic rights to a book. Knowledgeable authors and agents, however, are well aware that e-book royalty rates of 25% of net proceeds are exceedingly low and contrary to the long-standing practice of authors and publishers to, effectively, split evenly the net proceeds of book sales.
Bargain-basement e-book royalty rates will not last. Low e-book royalty rates will, as e-book sales become increasingly important, emerge as a dealbreaker for authors with negotiating leverage. Publishers will, inevitably, agree to reasonable royalties rather than lose their bestselling authors to more generous rivals and startups. We suspect publishers are well aware of this and are postponing the unavoidable because it seems to make sense in the short run. We believe this is short-sighted.
A major agency starting a publishing company is weird, no matter how you look at it. This sort of weirdness will only multiply, however, as long as authors don't share fairly in the rewards of electronic publishing. Publishers seeking to manage this transition well should cut authors in appropriately. The sooner they do so, the better. For everyone.
Wiley Rejects Guild's Audit Proposal
June 16, 2010. From the start, informed consent has been our primary concern regarding Wiley's proposed amendments to the Bloomberg authors' contracts. In our view, Wiley's initial letter was a spectacular failure, destined perhaps for law school textbooks, in obtaining informed consent to a contract modification. After reviewing several Bloomberg Press contracts, we couldn't imagine why any well-informed author would agree to the proposed amendments. Wiley has now said, repeatedly, that we have it all wrong, that the proposed amendment is actually good for Bloomberg authors. (Here are our three earlier alerts on this matter: one, two, and three.)This week, we discussed a proposal with Wiley to help sort things out. In a press release yesterday afternoon (you can find it below), Wiley rejected our proposal, but agreed to disregard any signed contract amendments at the author's request. While this is progress, and we're relieved that Bloomberg authors will have this opportunity, we still don't know whether those authors will be given the clear information they need regarding how the changes will affect their royalties and other material terms of their book contracts.
Our proposal to Wiley, which we agreed not to share with the press without first informing Wiley (Wiley took it upon itself to share part of it with the press), had three parts:
1. After the conclusion of a standard Wiley royalty period, Wiley would allow an independent royalty auditor to review a reasonable sample of actual Wiley/Bloomberg royalty statements under the Wiley system and prepare a report on how the Wiley amendment affected authors' royalties. The auditor would compute royalties under the Wiley amendment and under the original Bloomberg terms, to arrive at a clear, side-by-side comparison of the two. Wiley would disseminate that auditor's report to its Bloomberg authors. This report would end the argument between Wiley and the Authors Guild: real data would replace rhetoric. More...
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Songwriters and Authors Unite to Protect Termination Rights
May 3, 2010. The Authors Guild and The Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) told the U.S. Copyright Office on Friday that there is an urgent need to eliminate a potential “gap” in termination rights granted under the Copyright Act. The joint filing, announced today by Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken and SGA president Rick Carnes, was in response to a request for comments by the Office on the issue. The “gap,” if not addressed, might prevent as many as 100,000 creators from being able to exercise termination rights they – and Members of Congress – thought had effectively been granted to them under the law. More...Scott Turow Elected President of Authors Guild; Judy Blume Is Vice President
April 28, 2010. At the annual meeting of the Authors Guild in New York yesterday, members elected Scott Turow as their president and Judy Blume as their vice president. Meg Cabot, Michelle Richmond and T.J. Stiles joined the Guild's executive Council. Roy Blount Jr. concluded his presidency of the Authors Guild, the largest organization of published book authors in the U.S., after serving four years. More...Our BEA Salute to Roy Blount, in 4 Colors
May 26, 2010. If you're coming to the show, stop by Booth #4769 anytime after noon (perhaps when you drop in for a hot dog and a beer with Scott Turow at 12:15) and pick up a button quoting Roy's last Bulletin column:
If you're not coming to BEA and would like a button, drop a self-addressed stamped envelope in the mail and we'll get one to you.
More...Random House, HarperCollins Look to Lock In Low E-Book Royalty Rates: 5 Ways to Protect Yourself
March 18, 2010. Random House and HarperCollins are sending letters to authors and agents seeking amendments to contracts regarding e-book rights. These letters, although some suggest that the author's work was "selected" for digitization, appear to be going to virtually all authors who have no stated e-book royalty rate in their contracts. In some cases, the letters have gone to authors who have never granted e-book rights to the publisher.
These amendments should be treated with extreme care.
E-book royalty rates are low at the moment. Both publishers are trying to lock in e-book royalty rates at 25% of net receipts. As we've previously said, we believe this will prove to be a low-water mark for e-book royalties:
Authors and publishers have traditionally split the proceeds from book sales. Most sublicenses, for example, provide for a 50/50 split of proceeds, and the standard trade book royalty of 15% of the hardcover retail price, back in the days that industry standard was established, represented about 50% of the net proceeds of the sale of the book. We're confident that the current practice of paying 25% of net on e-books will not, in the long run, prevail. Savvy agents are well aware of this. The only reason e-book royalty rates are so low right now is that so little attention has been paid to them: sales were simply too low to scrap over. That's beginning to change.
Here's how to protect yourself:
More...White House Applauds Joint Effort for Print Disabled
March 9, 2010. The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and the Reading Rights Coalition agreed to work together to ensure access to books for people with print disabilities. On the White House blog, Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy, endorsed the effort. More...Supreme Court Reverses Appellate Decision on Freelance Settlement
March 3, 2010. There's big news in our freelance electronic database class action. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an appellate court ruling that the settlement, entered into in 2005, was impermissible because it encompassed unregistered as well as registered freelance works. More...Related Articles
Guild Launches Who Moved My Buy Button? Website
February 5, 2010. The Authors Guild is pleased to announce the launch of WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com, which is now live in fully-functional beta form. Who Moved My Buy Button? allows authors to keep track of whether Amazon has removed the "buy buttons" from any of their books.Simply register the ISBNs of any books you'd like monitored, and our web tool will check daily to make sure your buy buttons are safe and sound. If there's a problem, we'll e-mail you an alert.
Although we've launched WhoMovedMyBuyButton.com in response to Amazon's wholesale removal of buy buttons from Macmillan titles, we believe Amazon should be monitored for years to come. Amazon's developed quite a fondness for employing this draconian tactic (there's a chronology at the website); it's only grown bolder with its growing market clout.
Vigilance is called for: sounding off is our best collective defense. Register your ISBNs today -- it's free and open to all authors, Guild members and not. (Though we'd prefer you join.) More...
To RIAA or Not to RIAA, That was the Question
February 5, 2010. As you may be reading in today's paper, the Justice Department in its filing regarding our settlement with Google continues to see legal problems with the settlement, focusing on class action law but also continuing to raise some antitrust concerns. We disagree with the Justice Department's reading of the law. At the same time, it's good to see the Department recognizes the settlement's many benefits. In our view, it's best for everyone that out-of-print library books be made available through reasonable, market-based means to readers, students and scholars. Without a settlement, that won't happen. It's also best that authors have direct control of the scans the Google has made, with the power to compel Google to hide, display or remove those scans. Without a settlement, authors have no such control. Google's scanning and use of authors' books would continue until the lawsuit was finally resolved. More...Related Articles
Macmillan E-Royalties at 25%
February 4, 2010. In a letter just released by John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan, Sargent makes reference to discussions with the Authors Guild over Macmillan's e-book royalty structure. As you know, we criticized Macmillan in October over its proposed new e-book royalty rate of 20% of receipts.In our discussions, Sargent agreed to "be flexible" on e-royalty rates, since current industry standards provide a royalty of 25% of receipts. The signal was quite clear that 25% was there for the asking. In further discussions on Monday, Sargent confirmed that Macmillan's standard e-book royalty would be 25% of receipts under their new boilerplate contract.
As we've said before, we believe that 25% of receipts is a transitional royalty rate for e-books. From our December 15 e-mail alert on Random House's retroactive rights grab:
"Authors and publishers have traditionally split the proceeds from book sales. Most sublicenses, for example, provide for a 50/50 split of proceeds, and the standard trade book royalty of 15% of the hardcover retail price, back in the days that industry standard was established, represented about 50% of the net proceeds of the sale of the book. We're confident that the current practice of paying 25% of net on e-books will not, in the long run, prevail. Savvy agents are well aware of this. The only reason e-book royalty rates are so low right now is that so little attention has been paid to them: sales were simply too low to scrap over. That's beginning to change... [W]e strongly suspect that e-royalty rates are at a low-water mark."
That said, Macmillan's e-book royalty rate is now similar to that of other major publishers. We look forward to continuing to discuss with Macmillan other provisions of its proposed new contract.
John Sargent's open letter follows. More...
Weather Advisory
February 10, 2010. Authors, it's snowing! Do you know where your buy buttons are? Are you sure? Buy buttons go missing without notice more often than you know (read Buy-Button Removal Chronology). Make sure your buy button is snug and warm at your book's page at Amazon. Sign up for your free account at whomovedmybuybutton.com. We'll alert you if your buy button takes a powder, whatever the weather.Not certain whether your buy button's gone missing? We can help. See Buy-Buttonology: A Field Guide to Amazon's Book Pages.
Keeping an eye on our friends at Amazon since last Friday.
More...
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The Right Battle at the Right Time
February 2, 2010. Macmillan's current fight with Amazon over e-book business models is a necessary one for the industry. The stakes are high, particularly for Macmillan authors. In a squabble over e-books, Amazon quickly and pre-emptively escalated matters by removing the buy buttons from all Macmillan titles (with some exceptions for scholarly and educational books), in all editions, including all physical book editions. Thousands of authors and titles are affected; hardest and most unfairly hit are authors with new books published by Macmillan that are in their prime sales period.More...
1/11/10 - Google Claims Process Simplified
January 11, 2010. Claiming a lengthy list of your books, short stories, essays, poems and articles for Google settlement benefits just got much easier. You can now start the process by simply submitting your bibliography to the claims administrator. You need only e-mail -- or send by regular mail -- a list of your books and shorter literary works (poems, short stories, articles) that may appear in books covered by the settlement. When in doubt, we suggest you submit everything. More...Random House's Retroactive Rights Grab
December 15, 2009. On Friday, Random House CEO Markus Dohle sent a two-page letter to many literary agents regarding e-books. Much of the letter is devoted to Random House's efforts and investments to market traditional and electronic books.On the second page, Mr. Dohle gets to the point. After noting that most of Random House's backlist titles grant the publisher electronic book rights (we agree, since most backlist titles are from the past ten years, a period in which authors have generally licensed electronic rights in tandem with their print rights), he writes that "there have been some misunderstandings concerning ebook rights in older backlist titles." He then proceeds to argue that older contracts granting rights to publish "in book form" or "in all editions" grant electronic rights to Random House.
The misunderstandings reside entirely with Random House.
More...
Last Call: Google Settlement Seminars by Phone
January 22, 2010. For those still seeking more information about the Google Book Settlement, we'll be hosting five phone-in seminars next week. These are open to all authors and agents. The seminars are free, except for your usual long-distance phone charges. We've expanded the capacity to accommodate many more people. We encourage you to forward this on to other authors and groups of authors.Each seminar will provide a short, clear explanation of the settlement and will answer all questions from participants. Each seminar will last about an hour. The seminars will be conducted by Paul Aiken, Jan Constantine, and Anita Fore, the Guild's Executive Director, General Counsel, and Director of Legal Services.
Here are the dates and times, click on a link to sign up:
Monday, January 25, 2010 at 10:00 AM Eastern Std Time
Monday, January 25, 2010 at 3:00 PM Eastern Std Time
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 10:00 AM Eastern Std Time
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 3:00 PM Eastern Std Time
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 10:00 AM Eastern Std Time
When a seminar is full, it will be removed from the list of options on the online registration form.
More...
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11/13/09 - Amended Settlement Filed in Authors Guild v. Google
November 13, 2009. We've filed the amended settlement in Authors Guild v. Google. The official documents will be available at googlebooksettlement.com at some point over the weekend. In the meantime, here are the big changes:1. Smaller Class; Representation of Foreign Countries on Registry Board. We've narrowed down the class to authors and publishers of works registered in the U.S. and authors and publishers of works published in the three other countries that have contributed the largest number of English-language works to American libraries: Australia, Canada, and the U.K. Each of these countries will have an author and a publisher seat on the Book Rights Registry board.
2. Independent Fiduciary for Unclaimed Works. An independent fiduciary approved by the court will be solely responsible for decisions regarding unclaimed works. More...
Ursula K. Le Guin, Google, and the Economics of Authorship
December 23, 2009. We appreciate Ursula K. Le Guin's many years of membership and regret that she has chosen to resign from the Guild. We are open and eager to discuss this matter with her at any time.In many respects, we agree with Ms. Le Guin. We hold the principles of copyright to be fundamental -- they are bedrock principles for the Authors Guild and the economics of authorship. That's why we sued Google in the first place.
It would therefore have been deeply satisfying, on many levels, to litigate our case to the end and win, enjoining Google from scanning books and forcing it to destroy the scans it had made. It also would have been irresponsible, once a path to a satisfactory settlement became available.
More...
Google Settlement Fairness Hearing Adjourned
September 24, 2009. Judge Denny Chin has granted the motion of authors and publishers to adjourn the fairness hearing scheduled for October 7th. While noting that the current settlement raises "significant issues," Judge Chin says that "the proposed settlement would offer many benefits to society, as recognized by supporters of the settlement as well as DOJ. ... It would appear that if a fair and reasonable settlement can be struck, the public would benefit."Court Order Adjourning Hearing More...
Justice Department "Does Not Want Opportunity Lost," Urges Revisions
Text of e-mail sent to members, September 21, 2009. Beating their midnight deadline by about 90 minutes, the Justice Department on Friday filed a brief calling for modifications to the Guild's class-action settlement with Google over Google's scanning of millions of library books without permission. While it opposes the settlement agreement as it now stands, the Justice Department "strongly supports" the settlement's goals of creating new markets for out-of-print works and committed itself to working constructively with the parties on a revised settlement. More...Time to File Amended Settlement Extended to November 13
November 9, 2009. Judge Denny Chin approved the request of the parties in Authors Guild v. Google to extend the time to present an amended settlement agreement from today until Friday, November 13th. In a letter filed with the court this morning, Michael Boni, attorney for the authors in the litigation, said that the parties have been hard at work on completing the amended settlement and that discussions with the Justice Department had continued, with the most recent meeting on Friday, November 6th. November 9, 2009 Letter and Order of Judge Chin More...Authors Guild Testimony Before House Judiciary Committee
The Guild in its September 10th testimony argues that although authors and publishers have been so far spared the fate of their colleagues in the newspaper and magazine industries, "The portents are not encouraging. Finding a sustainable business model for creative work in digital form seems nearly impossible on the Internet: if piracy doesn’t get you, the aggregators will."The Guild finds reasons for optimism, however, including the Google Book Settlement, which "promises to address one of the oldest and most vexing of market failures: the loss to the commercial market of out-of-print books." More...
Books in Limbo
This piece by James Shapiro originally appeared on Huffington Post August 19, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission of the author.Much has been written of late about the Google Book Settlement, mostly about issues of copyright, monopoly and privacy. The tone has become increasingly nasty and the turn to scare tactics familiar to anyone following the health care debate. Lost in these broadsides and in the motions filed to the U. S. District Court that will soon rule on the case is the view from the trenches: What effect will the proposed settlement (or its derailment) have on students and scholarship? More...
Should I Opt Out? Should I Fear Google? What about the Money?
Answers about the Google Book Settlement
There’s not much time left for authors to opt out. What should I do? Short answer: nothing. Longer answer: Opting out of the settlement is for authors who want to preserve their right to sue Google themselves. We don’t think there are any such authors. More...
William Morris's Google Memo Off Target
Text of e-mail sent to members, August 10, 2009. William Morris's recent memo to clients about the Google book settlement contains several errors that are likely to sow some confusion. More...Roy Blount: Let's Not Lose Our Heads Over a "Monopoly" of Orphans
Text of e-mail sent to members, June 24, 2009. Dear Fellow Authors, I'd like to talk to you about orphans. Recently, regarding our settlement with Google, some dissent has been voiced that centers on so-called "orphan books." I can't see any reason to dissent from the settlement over the matter of orphan books. More...Court Extends Time to Opt Out of Google Settlement by Four Months
April 28, 2009. The court overseeing Authors Guild v. Google extended the time for authors and publishers to opt out of the settlement by four months, to September 4th (Judge Chin's order). We don't recommend opting out -- this settlement is a good deal for authors, bringing their out-of-print books back to commercial life (while leaving the marketplace for in-print books alone More...Making the Kindle Accessible to the Print Disabled
April 7, 2009. There's an easy technological fix: those with certified disabilities could have a Kindle operating system that is subtly modified to permit voice output for all books, overriding any limitations put in place by publishers. Read the Guild's statement on accessibility after the jump. More...Freelance Class-Action Settlement Going to Supreme Court
March 2, 2009. This morning, we learned that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal regarding our freelance class-action settlement with electronic datase companies and decide whether federal courts have jurisdiction over lawsuits involving unregistered works. This is good news. More...Amazon Reverses Stance on Computer-Generated Audio for the Kindle 2
March 2, 2009. At the end of the business day on Friday, Amazon announced that it would allow publishers (and thereby many authors) to block text-to-speech audio functionality on a title-by-title basis for its Kindle 2 reading device. More...Related Articles
A Brief Guide to the Benefits of the Authors Guild v. Google Settlement
February 25, 2009. The settlement strengthens authors' rights and will, if approved by the court, result in millions of dollars of payments to authors. At least $45 million will be paid to authors and publishers to release claims for books that are scanned by Google by May 5th of this year. But that's not the most significant part of the settlement, in our view. We expect the licensing that this settlement would enable, particularly of out-of-print books, will result in far more revenues for authors over the coming years. More...Related Articles
Kindle 2 Audio: How Does It Sound?
February 25, 2009. Text-to-speech (TTS) programs have been in use for a number of years, and they're improving. As Roy Blount says in an op-ed in today's New York Times, Kindle 2's TTS isn't Jim Dale reading "Harry Potter," but it's listenable. There's no need to take our word for it; have a listen to the sample below. More...E-Book Rights Alert: Amazon's Kindle 2 Adds "Text to Speech" Function
February 12, 2009. On Monday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reading device at the Morgan Library in New York. Most of the changes from the first version of the Kindle are incremental improvements: the new Kindle is lighter and thinner, for example, and Amazon eliminated the scroll wheel. One update, however, is wholly new: Amazon has added a "Text to Speech" function that reads the e-book aloud through the use of special software. More...Holiday Message from Roy Blount Jr.:
Buy Books From Your Local Bookstore, Now
December 11, 2008. I've been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren't known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don't lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. More...
How the Authors Guild v. Google Settlement Will Work
December 4, 2008. The landmark settlement between the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Google promises to create new markets for out-of print books, while vastly improving reader access to those books. More...$125 Million Settlement in Authors Guild v. Google
A message from Roy Blount Jr.:October 28, 2008. A couple months after I became Authors Guild president in 2006, we met with Google to propose a settlement to our class-action lawsuit. The Guild had sued Google in September 2005, after Google struck deals with major university libraries to scan and copy millions of books in their collections. Many of these were older books in the public domain, but millions of others were still under copyright More...
Authors Guild v. Google Settlement Resources Page
October 28, 2008. On this page, we've gathered documents and links that will be of interest to authors and others regarding this settlement. More...Press Conference Remarks of Guild Executive Director
[October 28, 2008] It's a pleasure to be here to jointly announce what may be the biggest book deal in U.S. publishing history. More...Macadam/Cage Royalties on Track, According to Publisher
September 19, 2008. After today's Publishers Weekly report about layoffs and a "cash crunch" at San Francisco publisher Macadam/Cage, we gave editor-in-chief Pat Walsh a call to check on the company's fiscal health. More...Authors Guild to Work With F&W/Adams Media to Review Accounting Practices
August 15, 2008. F&W/Adams Media has contacted the Authors Guild in response to our August 13 member alert about an arbitrator's award to Guild member Sherry Argov. F&W expressed its confidence in its royalty accounting practices and has offered to work with the Guild to demonstrate that its accounting systems are appropriate. We'll take F&W up on its offer and will be reporting the results of our review to our members. More...Related Articles
Simon & Schuster Proposes E-Book Amendment
July 17, 2008. Simon & Schuster has recently sent a one-page letter to many, perhaps thousands, of authors with unspecified e-book royalty rates in an attempt to set those rates at 15% of the "catalog retail price" of the e-book. More...Authors Guild to Study F&W/Adams Media Royalty Accounting
August 13, 2008. Internal e-mails, including an admission that Adams Media has "no system in place for tracking inbound Royalty Statements from translation rights deals," and a recent arbitrator's ruling in Massachusetts awarding $209,000 to an author raise serious questions about the accounting practices of F&W Publishing and Adams Media. More...Authors Registry Hits $2.5 Million Mark for 2008
June 30, 2008. The Authors Registry, the not-for-profit organization founded by the Authors Guild and others in 1995, has paid more than $2.5 million to authors since the start of the year, a record for the organization. More...Amazon Squeezes Long Tail
April 4, 2008. Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all print-on-demand books that it sells be printed by BookSurge, Amazon's on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. More...Reversal in Freelance Class-Action Settlement
November 29, 2007. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, in a 2-1 decision, the district court's approval of the settlement.The news is stunning. The appellate court ruled that the district court lacked jurisdiction over claims relating to unregistered freelance articles. It was an issue that no one brought up on appeal.
The appellate court's opinion. More...
Dead Celebrities Bill Dormant; May Revive
June 22, 2007. The New York State Assembly and Senate adjourned their regular sessions yesterday without taking action on the "Dead Celebrities" bill. This is good news. More...Immediate Help Needed on New York "Dead Celebrities" Bill
June 20, 2007. There's been a sudden and alarming push in the New York State Legislature to pass a bill that would create a posthumous "right of publicity" for anyone who died since Jan. 1, 1938. The Guild has sent out an e-mail to members encouraging them to take action against Assembly bill (A.8836) and Senate bill (S. 6005). More...Apology, Movement from Simon & Schuster
June 1, 2007. Simon & Schuster executives yesterday apologized for "any early miscommunication" regarding reversion of rights, according to the Association of Authors' Representatives (the literary agents' organization). S&S is willing to negotiate a "revenue-based threshold" to determine whether a book is in-print, says the AAR. The AAR's alert follows. More...Literary Papers Tax Bill Needs Your Support
May 3, 2007. In an e-mail to members, the Authors Guild asked for support of the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, which has been reintroduced in the House and Senate. The bill would allow authors to deduct from their income for federal tax purposes the fair market value of donated manuscripts and other literary papers. More...Global Chilling Update: Major Libel Ruling in London
October 11, 2006. The House of Lords, the United Kingdom's highest court, ruled today that British journalists may now publish allegations about public figures without fear of libel claims, provided that they acted responsibly and in the public interest in carrying out their reporting. A recent Authors Guild Foundation panel discussed how British libel law was affecting American authors. We don't yet know whether or how the ruling will apply to book publishing, but we're trying to find out more information. More...Trademark Bill Threatens Free Expression
February 14, 2006. A bill that would drop express protection for "noncommercial use" of a trademark and would weaken the protections for those who use trademarks in news commentary will be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, February 16. The legislation has already passed the House. The Guild is encouraging writers in states represented on the Judiciary Committee to contact their senators about the bill. More...Is Google a charity? Some handy talking points for the Google Class-Action Lawsuit
September 23, 2005. In an e-mail to members, the Authors Guild lays out some basics about the class action suit against Google. More...Related Articles
Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing “Massive Copyright Infringement”
September 20, 2005. The Authors Guild and a Lincoln biographer, a children's book author, and a former Poet Laureate of the U.S. filed a class action suit today in Manhattan against Google over its "Library" program. The suit charges the $90 billion company with massive copyright infringement. More...Jung Biographer Stands Firm, Wins
October 19, 2005. This past summer, heirs of Carl Jung pressed a German imprint of Random House to insert "corrections" to the text of the German language edition of a Jung biography by Authors Guild member Deirdre Bair. With the help of Guild attorney Anita Fore, Bair succeeded in having her lauded biography published without alteration. More...Not at the Writers' Expense
On October 22, 2005, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Authors Guild President Nick Taylor on Google Library. In it, Mr. Taylor asks why increased exposure is the only compensation a wealthy company can offer authors for this commercial venture. More...Five Publishers Sue Google over Google Library
October 19, 2005. The Association of American Publishers announced today that The McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group (USA), Simon & Schuster and John Wiley & Sons had sued Google over its Library project. The suit seeks a declaration from the court that Google's scanning of entire works is copyright infringement and an injunction preventing such scanning. More...Google's "Renegade Notion of Eminent Domain"
October 2, 2005. In a letter published in today's New York Times, Authors Guild president Nick Taylor responds to the recent op-ed written by Google advisory board member Tim O'Reilly. Mr. Taylor urges "a better way: let's build a real digital library, not just 'snippets.' Writers are willing, but not at the cost of our rights." More...Google Launches Book-Browse Competitor to Amazon
October 7, 2004. Unlike Amazon's "Search Inside the Book," Google Print offers to place ads beneath book excerpts and share revenues with publishers. Authors are entitled to 50% of publishers' ad revenue in most cases. More...Class Action Settlement Amended to Cover Amazon.com and Highbeam
On July 28, 2005, Judge Daniels gave preliminary approval to an amended settlement in the freelancers' class action suit. The amendment is intended to resolve a dispute over the licensing by one or more of the defendants of freelancers' articles to Amazon.com and Highbeam Research during settlement negotiations. The Authors Guild and other plaintiffs believed these licenses to violate the settlement. More...Official Summary Notice of Settlement (1 page)
Click here to download the Official Summary Notice: Summary Notice More...Official Notice of Settlement (more detailed)
Click here to download the Official Notice: Notice More...6/14/10 - One in Five Bloomberg Authors Received Royalties Based on Retail List Price, Says Wiley
June 14, 2010. John Wiley issued a new press release Friday afternoon regarding the contractual modifications it's seeking from its Bloomberg Press authors. In that release, Wiley says that one in five Bloomberg contracts provided royalties based on retail list price. As we've previously noted, Wiley's proposed amendment would slash royalties for those authors by up to 50%. (Our earlier alerts on this matter are here and here.)Wiley commits to reach out to Bloomberg authors. Reaching out will only help, however, if the authors are provided with accurate information. Based on Wiley's latest release (below, following our alert), we're not optimistic.
1. Wiley says that in Bloomberg "list price" agreements, royalty rates were lowered when discounts exceed 50%, that the average discount rate for the books was greater than 50%, and that therefore "we believe the authors will benefit with the proposed, simplified Wiley terms."
This belief doesn't stand up to an examination of the Bloomberg contracts. While it's true that Bloomberg contracts often provide that royalty rates are reduced when sales discounts reach certain thresholds, Wiley's suggestion that these reductions uniformly apply once discounts exceed 50% is wrong. The royalty reductions kick in at various levels, depending on the contract. Sometimes royalty rates are reduced when books are sold at 51% discounts to retailers and sometimes at 53% or 55% discounts. But here's the thing: even taking that into account, authors do far better under the original Bloomberg contracts than under the Wiley amendment. More...
6/11/10 - Turow to Wiley: "Knock it off and do the right thing."
June 11, 2010. Late yesterday afternoon, John Wiley issued a press release disputing some of the assertions in our alert of yesterday morning. In our alert, we called Wiley's April letter to its Bloomberg Press authors "deceptive" and "misleading" and that it would "materially and adversely affect the royalty rates of many Bloomberg Press authors."We stand by every word of our alert, and we again call on Wiley to start over. No sensible Bloomberg author with a contract providing royalties based on the retail list price of their book would have signed Wiley's amendment if they were fully aware of its effects. Wiley should send Bloomberg authors a new letter, informing the authors that they are disregarding any previous consents to Wiley's proposed contract changes and clearly explaining how the new terms they're suggesting differ from the authors' existing contracts.
Or, as Scott Turow put it on reviewing their response, "Wiley should knock it off and do the right thing."
In any event, here are our replies to John Wiley's various assertions:
1. Wiley's response says that its April letter to Bloomberg authors "explain[ed] the changes in plain English" and invited authors "to discuss these changes or raise questions."
Wiley's April letter is plain enough, but it avoids any hint that its changes will greatly reduce many Bloomberg authors' royalties. This is fundamental. Wiley's a sophisticated publisher, well aware of what it's doing and well aware that most authors aren't publishing attorneys. It could have spelled out the effects of its proposed contractual changes in equally plain English. If it had done so, then the offer to discuss the changes would have been meaningful. More...
6/10/10 - Wiley's Deceptive Letter to Bloomberg Press Authors: "We are pleased to inform you" that we will be slicing your royalties up to 50%
June 10, 2010. John Wiley & Sons acquired Bloomberg Press, the books division of Bloomberg, in March. At the end of April, it began sending a letter to hundreds of Bloomberg Press authors purporting to inform them "about a few differences in the accounting systems of Bloomberg and Wiley that it will be helpful for you to know about."While this sounds innocent enough, it isn't. More...
11/13/09 - Happy Amended Settlement Day!
November 13, 2009. We file the amended Google settlement with the court today, but it's not quite out of the oven yet. While you're waiting, we thought we'd share some of the thoughts of others on the original settlement.Normally, we wouldn't recommend a piece that in any way compares out-of-print books to sewage, but this piece in Slate is by Tim Wu, a Columbia Law professor and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Mr. Wu specializes in copyright law and telecommunications policy and is best known online as the popularizer of the net neutrality movement. He's also chairman of the board of Free Press, a nonprofit dedicated, among other things, to combating media monopolies. For those wary of Google, his concluding paragraph is worth reading:
"But if you want to put Google in its place, the book project is the wrong way to do so. It is Google's monopoly on Internet search that is valuable and potentially dangerous, not a quixotic project to provide access to unpopular books. So hold on to that sense of wariness, but understand that in this case, it's misplaced. To punish Google by killing Book Search would be like punishing Andrew Carnegie by blowing up Carnegie Hall." More...
9/09/09 - Authors Line Up to Support Google Book Settlement
September 9, 2009. Authors who support the Google Book Settlement as a way to provide greater access to their books and make additional money from those works need to do nothing to be a party to it and enjoy its benefits. Still, many have decided to make their support known. Here's a list of Authors Guild members who have taken a public position in support of the settlement. More...9/02/09 - Amazon Accuses Someone Else of Monopolizing Bookselling
September 2, 2009. Amazon made it official today, filing a brief in the Google case claiming that someone else might gain a monopoly in bookselling. It seems we're compelled to state the obvious:Amazon's hypocrisy is breathtaking. It dominates online bookselling and the fledgling e-book industry. At this moment it's trying to cement its control of the e-book industry by routinely selling e-books at a loss. More...
