Publishing

A look back at the Valancourt case

This entry was posted in Publishing and tagged books copyright law publishing on by

This post presents the finish of a story that I first blogged about in 2018. Court cases can take a long time to reach a resolution, and I missed it when the decision came out last year. Before the resolution of Valancourt Books’ lawsuit, the US copyright office demanded a free copy of every book published in the US. It was uneven in pressing its demands; for reasons I don’t know, it came down hard on Valancourt, a small-run publisher. The requirement was especially burdensome for such publishers; it costs a bigger part of your assets to send out an unpaid copy when you print a hundred copies or do print-on-demand than when you print a hundred thousand. Regardless of the number, it was a clear-cut violation of the Fifth Amendment, which says the government can’t take private property for public use without paying “just compensation.”

In 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed with this reasoning and said the requirement for free copies was unconstitutional.
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Hachette v. Internet Archive

This entry was posted in Commentary Publishing and tagged books copyright law libraries preservation on by

The legal battle over the Internet Archive’s Open Library has drawn passionate responses from people involved in the creation, publication, and distribution of books. As I’m writing this, the court of the Southern District of New York has ruled that putting unauthorized digitized versions of copyrighted books on the open Internet is a violation of copyright, and the Internet Archive is appealing the decision.

Publishers Hachette, Penguin Random House, Wiley, and HarperCollins argued that distributing books through the Open Library violated their copyrights. The Internet Archive has declared its appeal is “a necessary fight if we want library collections to survive in the digital age.” SFWA has stated that the Open Library “is not library lending, but direct infringement of authors’ copyrights.” The debate pits the rights of authors and publishers against the aims of preservation.
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Smashwords adding Kobo Plus

This entry was posted in Publishing Writing as business and tagged DRM kobo smashwords on by

The ebook publishing site Smashwords is adding Kobo Plus to its options for self-publishing authors. Smashwords already has Kobo as one of its publishing channels. The difference is that regular Kobo lets people buy books individually, while Kobo Plus is a subscription service letting users view as many books as they want.

Smashwords’ emailed notice says:
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More bowdlerization — this time, in educational materials

This entry was posted in Publishing and tagged bowdlerization education publishing on by

The sanitized version of Roald Dahl’s books removed a reference to black tractors, apparently because it was deemed racially offensive. That’s problematic, but wiping relevant racial information out of factual material is much worse. An educational pamphlet produced by Studies Weekly was revised to omit any reference to racial issues in a capsule discussion of Rosa Parks.

The revised text says: “Rosa Parks showed courage. One day, she rode the bus. She was told to move to a different seat. She did not. She did what she believed was right.” There’s no mention of why she was told to move. A child reading that today might think she had sat in a seat reserved for handicapped passengers.
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David Friedman’s battle with Amazon

This entry was posted in News Publishing and tagged Amazon KDP law on by

David Friedman is the son of economist Milton Friedman. While he isn’t as famous as his father was, he’s respected in libertarian circles. On November 8, he reported on his blog that Amazon has terminated his KDP account, taken his books offline, and denied him the right to collect outstanding royalties.

Update: Friedman reports Amazon has reinstated his account.

Apparently KDP, Amazon’s self-publishing arm, terminated my account in September, sending me a message I missed. They claim I had multiple accounts, why I have no idea, and also that “this account is related to an account that was terminated due to violations of our Content Guidelines.”

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Tips for creating topic descriptions

This entry was posted in Publishing Writing as business and tagged clients on by

Do you create topic descriptions for writers to make proposals or submissions on? There’s an art to creating a useful description. Some common omissions regularly evoke complaints from writers. A description that doesn’t work well will result in submissions you can’t use or none at all. When you have to reject them, that sours writers who might have provided you with good material. Here are some tips, based on my experience:
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“Files that Last” pirated on Scribd

This entry was posted in Publishing Writing and tagged piracy Scribd on by

Update: My book wasn’t exactly pirated, but involved a rather dubious maneuver on Smashwords’ part. See the additional information at the end of this post.

Just this morning I learned that Scribd hosts a pirated copy of my ebook Files that Last. I’ve submitted a takedown request. We’ll see if they do anything about it.

According to the automated email response, “Content on Scribd is uploaded and maintained by our members and publishers with no editorial approval or other intervention by Scribd’s employees. Scribd takes the rights of intellectual property owners very seriously and complies as a service provider with all applicable provisions of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) of 1998. We expeditiously remove infringing material and terminate repeat infringers when such action is deemed appropriate.”

Translation: Scribd makes no attempt whatsoever to stop pirated works from being uploaded yet claims to take copyright “very seriously.”

I put months of effort into writing Files that Last. I paid for copy editing and cover art. Scribd is siphoning money off my work, getting ad revenue, without having lifted one finger to contribute to the book’s creation.

I’m sure there are lots of other pirate sites where you can find copies of just about anything ever published. But Scribd pretends to be respectable.

As thanks for reading this, here’s a coupon code for Files that Last on Smashwords, letting you buy it for just $4.50 (regular $7.99): VN54Y. Expires May 11.

Update

Within a few hours of reporting the incident, I got a reply from Scribd. It included the following:

was delivered to Scribd as part of a content distribution agreement with Smashwords. As part of this agreement, Smashwords content is automatically added to Scribd’s BookID copyright protection system. The agreement is described on Smashwords’ blog at http://blog.smashwords.com/2013/12/smashwords-signs-distribution-agreement.html. This content was not removed from Scribd.

You can disable delivery of your content to Scribd with the Smashwords Channel Manager.

So it isn’t actually piracy, but I never agreed to let Smashwords put my content on Scribd. Smashwords is a distributor, not a publisher, as they make very clear to their writers. A “copyright protection system” sounds like DRM, and I do everything possible to keep my books from being distributed under DRM. It does nothing to hinder the crooks but keeps legitimate buyers from having “files that last.” I just logged in on Smashwords and “opted out” from Scribd, as well as a couple of other channels that didn’t look familiar. I don’t know how long it will take for the page to disappear from Scribd.

US Copyright Office attacks small publisher

This entry was posted in Publishing and tagged censorship copyright on by

There’s an old federal law that affects publishers. It requires every book publisher to submit two copies of each work published to the Copyright Office, without getting any payment. It originated long before automatic copyright and print-on-demand existed. Originally that served the purpose of securing copyright, and it only affected large-volume publishers. The burden on such publishers was low.

Today the law still exists, but it’s rarely enforced. With automatic copyright, it no longer serves its original purpose. Collecting free books from every print-on-demand operation and every fan publisher would ruin them. But when someone in the government wants to target a business, antiquated laws are useful. The Copyright Office is trying to ruin small PoD publisher Valancourt Books by enforcing this law.
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