Judgment in the Apple e-books settlement: DOJ 1, Publishers 0

On September 5, 2012, Judge Denise Cote entered an order approving the settlement between the DOJ and 3 of the 5 publishers in the Apple e-books litigation: Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins. And on every count, it was a clear win for the DOJ. Maybe not just for today.

Bob Kohn submits brief #2 in Apple e-books litigation. It's comical

Literally. Having been limited to 5 pages by the Court, he prepared a 5-page comic that summarizes his position frankly better than any text could have. I still don't know that I agree with his assessment, but it's worth a read.

EDIT: Apparently the link is 403 so I'll link to the American Bar Association Journal story on this and you can go from there.


LINKS:
Link to the brief:
http://www.abajournal.com/files/AppleAmicusBrief.pdf
Link to ABA Journal:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/faced_with_a_five-page_limit_lawyer_files_cartoon_amicus_brief_with_proper_/Thanks

Avoiding option clauses and cross-collateralization by using LLCs

A short post today, but hopefully a helpful one.

I've recently seen people complaining of two standard problems with traditional publishing contracts:

• Option clauses: where publishers require you to give them an option on your next book.
• Cross-collateralization: where publishers won't pay you royalties on your first book until you've paid back the advance on your second.

It seems to me that there's a very easy way around each of these problems.