A Manhattan court case about digitisation rights has brought books and the web a step closer togetherOn 14 November, after eight years of wrangling, Judge Denny Chin of the Manhattan district court finally ruled in the case of Google versus the Authors Guild. At issue was Google's scanning and digitisation of more than 20m books from libraries across the world, but at the heart of the case was question of what constitutes fair use in the age of the internet.For the Authors Guild, it was unquestioningly a violation of publishers' and authors' rights to copy their work wholesale and make "snippets" of it available online. For Google, and for many scholars and librarians who petitioned on its behalf, the indexing of those works is transformative, and adds to, rather than reduces, their value. After much deliberation, the courts have come to agree with the latter – it is, after all, what search engines have been doing to the web since it originated.There is a point at which we come to assume that a text is first and foremost digital. We've already passed that point for much of the media around us, understanding that even the letters we receive in the post are printed from digital "originals". Newspapers currently inhabit a mid-point: we're still unsure whether the printed or the website edition is the "true" version.That point is fast approaching for the book, and we are choosing the form that it will take. Essentially, the book is becoming more like the web, opened up to... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jan Constantine will step down as the legal counsel of the Authors Guild at the end of April, just a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Guild's appeal in its copyright infringement lawsuit against Google. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors and critics are warning that Middle Grade children’s books, for readers aged eight to 12 years, are failing to get the attention they merit from the media and book prize organisers because of the dominance of Young Adult titles. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-02-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Paul Aiken, the former long-time executive director of the Authors Guild, died Friday January 29, one day shy of his 57th birthday. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-02-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After years of writing about radicalization and terrorism in the Middle East, Arab authors are now in the spotlight in France as readers try to understand the recent Paris attacks. The post French Readers Put Arab Authors on the Bestseller List appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2016-01-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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As part of its ongoing effort to raise writers’ income, the Authors Guild is sending an open letter to members of the Association of American Publishers. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A coalition of authors groups and booksellers is urging the Supreme Court to reverse the verdict in Apple's ebook price-fixing case. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-12-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Every second counts with often impatient mobile users, so Google wants to help publishers reduce the time it takes their articles to load when viewed on smartphones. On Wednesday, Google launched a program called Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, which speeds up load times by plugging a piece... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2015-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A membership survey, contract initiative, and a dues hike are part of the organization's new program. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In its first study on author income since 2009, the Authors Guild delivers some jarring, if unsurprising, data. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-09-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Alane Adams worked for years as an accountant at her family’s business, but she always believed that one day she’d get back to her first two loves: reading and writing. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-09-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Guild addresses time limited book contracts, subrights, and the out-of-print clause in the latest installment of its Fair Contract Initiative. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-07-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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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. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-07-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Authors Guild is asking bestselling authors to push back against the industry's reigning 25% ebook royalty rate "on behalf of all authors, as well as themselves.” Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-07-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors are not used enough in marketing and publicity by publishers, writer Liz Fenwick has claimed. Speaking at The Bookseller's Marketing and Publicity conference Fenwick, who is published by Orion, said that she thought in general publishers did not speak enough to authors, or on a regular... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Authors Guild of America has launched a Fair Contract Initiative to “address the major inequities in many boilerplate contract terms today” and educate authors on what terms they can negotiate on. The initiative, announced on Friday (28th May) at BEA, aims to “restore balance to the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The theme of the International Digital Publishing Forum conference on day one at Book Expo in New York was “Putting Readers First,” but whether power has shifted from publishers and retailers to readers - asserted in a keynote by Canelo Publishing’s Michael Bhaskar - was quickly challenged by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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At this year's BookExpo America, the Authors Guild is rolling out its Fair Contract Initiative, a series of commentaries it will publish in the coming months that take a "fresh look at the standard book publishing contract." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-05-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Creators of the Clean Reader app will no longer sell books after receiving complaints from authors that their works were being altered without permission. The post UK Authors Force Clean Reader App to Stop Some Book Sales appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-03-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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After suffering two major defeats in its legal battle with Google’s library scanning partners, the Authors Guild this week finally ended the litigation. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Trying to stick it to Google is an understandable impulse, a resentment fed by the company's monolithic influence over the web. But all the Google News shutdown in Spain really shows is how powerless traditional publishers really are. The post Spain’s Google News Shutdown Is a Silly Victory for... Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2014-12-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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