AAP files against Maryland law forcing publishers to license library e-books — Mark Chandler of the Bookseller writes, “Pallante said: ‘Maryland does not have the constitutional authority to create a shadow copyright act or to manipulate the value of intellectual property interests. It is unambiguous that the US Copyright Act governs the disposition of literary works in commerce—and for that matter, all creative works of authorship. We take this encroachment very seriously, as the threat that it is to a viable, independent publishing industry in the United States and to a borderless copyright economy.'”
The CASE Act: Copyright Claims Board to Begin Hearing Cases in Spring 2022 — US Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter provides an update on the copyright small claims court her office is currently setting up. The body, which “will offer a cost-effective, streamlined, and voluntary alternative to litigation in federal court” is on track to be up and running by Spring.
What Happened to Amazon’s Bookstore? — There’s a lot of detail in this David Streitfeld article on the utter chaos of the globally dominant retailer’s bookstore, but this quote from Institute for Self-Reliance co-director Stacy Mitchell touches on one of the through lines: “‘“Best sellers and other books that you might find at a local bookstore are almost all sold by Amazon itself at prices that keep those competitors at bay,’ Ms. Mitchell said. ‘Then Amazon lets third-party sellers do the rest of the books, taking a huge cut of their sales.’ Amazon ‘doesn’t care if this third-party stuff is a chaotic free-for-all,’ she added. ‘In fact, it’s better for Amazon if legitimate businesses don’t stand a chance. In the same way Amazon wants to turn all work into gig jobs, it wants to turn running a business into a gig job. That way it can walk off with all the spoils.'”
NCAC Leads Coalition Statement on the Attack on Books in Schools — “Libraries offer students the opportunity to encounter books and other material that they might otherwise never see and the freedom to make their own choices about what to read. Denying young people this freedom to explore–often on the basis of a single controversial passage cited out of context–will limit not only what they can learn but who they can become.”
Google Features YTS and 123movies as “Best Movie Websites” — Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak reports, “Google’s algorithms have made life a lot more convenient for many people, but they sometimes lead to peculiar results. When searching for the best movie websites, the search engine features pirate sites including YTS and 123movies in related searches. These and other not-so-legal sites also appear in one of Google’s ‘best movie website’ lists.”