Feuds

Three universities have answered the National Federation of the Blind's call to not endorse Amazon.com (AMZN) Kindle DX as a textbook alternative on campus, and a spokesperson revealed that the Federation has contacted more universities to join the boycott.

In the past few weeks, Syracuse University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have agreed not to support the device until it is more accessible for visually impaired students.

In an interview, Chris Danielsen, the federation's Director of Public Relations, told GalleyCat: "It is certainly our intention to continue to reach out to more universities to make sure they take a stand ... We are corresponding with people we know at various universities, sending out more general correspondence as well. More will be revealed as we implement it." All year, the organization has defended the Kindle's controversial text-to-speech function.

Danielsen concluded: "We want to make sure that universities encourage a paradigm of accessibility for blind students and for all of their students. Text-to-speech and eBook accessibility are potentially beneficial to a lot of different people. We ultimately believe that anyone should be able to buy an eBook and read it in the form which is best for their needs."

A women's site has declared today "She Writes Day of Action" responding to a literary list that stirred up controversy on the Internets.

When Publishers Weekly released a series of Best Books of 2009 lists this week, the "Top Ten" list did not include any books by women authors. GalleyCat wrote about the ensuing controversy on Wednesday, as the founders of Women In Letters And Literary Arts (WILLA) passionately rejected the list. She Writes is urging upset readers to post on She Writes today; to buy a book by a female author; and to share posts with other readers.

In addition, Publishers Weekly reviews director Louisa Ermelino wrote one blogger to explain the controversial list: "[P]lease note that there are 100 best books, not just these ten. Also, our editorial staff is heavily female, none of us the retiring type. The editors all cover certain catagories but read voraciously across all the catagories. We came to the original meeting with our 'picks' and then over the course of several meeting whittled down the choices. We feel we ended up with books that we loved, that stood out from the pack... for 2009. Kind of a blind taste test."

When Publishers Weekly released a series of Best Books of 2009 lists this week, the "Top Ten" list did not include any books by women authors. GalleyCat wrote about the ensuing controversy on Wednesday, as the founders of Women In Letters And Literary Arts (WILLA) passionately rejected the list.

The story generated a stream of Twitter posts and plenty of literary debate. Since that story, a number of other news outlets reported on the story, including the Guardian, NY Times, Salon, and Publishers Weekly.

Since Wednesday, WILLA's membership has increased by more than 1,000 supporters--more than 5,600 people now support the group's Facebook page. In a statement, Erin Belieu (pictured, via), director of the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University and WILLA co-founder, added these thoughts: "They know they're being blatantly sexist, but it looks like they feel good about that. I, on the other hand, have heard from a whole lot of people--writers and readers--who don't feel good about it at all."

Spring Design has sued Barnes & Noble over the design of their digital reader Nook, arguing that the bookseller broke non-disclosure agreements and "misappropriated trade secrets" about the two-screen design of Spring Design's Alex Reader

According to Spring Design Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Eric Kmiec, the company had shared the device with bookseller: "We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes & Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market." Spring Design unveiled the reader on Oct. 19, 2009; a Google Android-based e-book device with wi-fi Internet browsing and a special dual screen allowing reading and browsing at the same time.

Here's more from the company's release: "Spring Design first developed and began filing patents on its Alex e-book, an innovative dual screen, Android-based e-book back in 2006. Since the beginning of 2009 Spring and Barnes & Noble worked within a non-disclosure agreement, including many meetings, emails and conference calls with executives ranging up to the president of Barnes and Noble.com, discussing confidential information regarding the features, functionality and capabilities of Alex."

The Regional Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean has filed a lawsuit against the producers of a new adaptation of a Gabriel García Márquez novel, a legal move that has stalled the film's production.

According to the Guardian, the group hopes to stop a production of the Nobel Prize-winning writer's novel, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" because of concerns about depictions of child prostitution. In the ensuing controversy, some Mexican officials decided to pull out their financial support for the film, dealing what the director called "a fatal blow" to the film.

Here's a quote from Coalition director Teresa Ulloa, from the article: "As a book, it does not have access to the most vulnerable people in society ... Once they make the movie, it will be in movie theatres and later it will surely be on television." (Via Book Bench)

French publisher La Martiniere has joined the French Publishers' Association and a French authors' group in a 15 million euros ($22.09 million) lawsuit against Google for scanning books into the Google Books database.

According to Reuters, the suit alleges that Google Books' French arm has digitized thousands of texts and violated the publisher's copyright. The company also hopes the court will fine Google 100,000 euros for every day that the scanned texts are still available. A French tribunal should rule on the case by mid-December.

The publisher's lawyer Yann Colin had this statement: "It's an anarchic way of brutally stockpiling French heritage ... Digitizing is reproduction ... Once it is digitized, you can't undo it." (Via Bookseller)

A federal judge dismissed a literary copyright lawsuit filed against Jerry Seinfeld and his wife, Jessica Seinfeld, ruling that Jessica's book, "Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Getting Your Kids Eating Good Food," did not violate the copyright of another cookbook.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed a copyright suit filed by Missy Chase Lapine, author of "The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals." Swain had sued, alleging that Jessica's cookbook copied her guide to cooking for children. According to the LA Times, the judge ruled that a state court should decide Swain's claims of defamation by Seinfeld.

Here's more from the judge's opinion: "The similarities identified by plaintiffs are the result of the similar medium of expression used (cookbooks) or of the similar subject matter that both cookbooks address (hiding healthy foods in kid-friendly books)." (Via Publishers Weekly)

BayNewser reports that Google (GOOG) announced they will allow third-party retailers to sell copies of the out-of-print books included in the pending Google Books settlement.

At the same time, executives from Google and Amazon (AMZN) are facing off in front of the U.S. House of Representative's Judiciary Committee today, in a special "Competition and Commerce in Digital Books" hearing about the settlement. You can follow the proceedings live on Twitter, but testimony from a variety of sources--from the Authors Guild to the National Federation of the Blind--is posted on the committee's website. Google's chief legal officer, David C. Drummond, filed this testimony: "To oppose this settlement means depriving the public of learning, and punishing the parties to a lawsuit for resolving their private litigation in innovative and groundbreaking ways."

Amazon.com's VP of of Global Policy, Paul Misener, filed this testimony against his competitor: "Under the proposed settlement, 'the next Google' wouldn't stand a chance, and customers of existing Google competitors would, instead of realizing the myriad benefits of market choices, find themselves at the mercy of a sole source provider. Under the proposed settlement, Google would become a consumer's nightmare: the only store in town."

Last night, South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson became instantly famous (and infamous) after yelling "You lie!" during President Barack Obama's health care speech in front of Congress.

Sarah Palin scored a book deal after taking an antagonistic stance against the Democrats, and Wilson will probably land his own memoir soon. He was the most popular topic on Twitter last night, and a number of Twitter writers composed titles for his future book. AbeC suggested "How to Go from Unknown to Hated in 30 Seconds or Less." Another Twitter blogger offered two titles: "You Lie" and "Living My Andy Warhol Moment." AnnDouglas added "Etiquette for Dummies."

What would you call Rep. Wilson's memoir? Leave your title in the comments. If you need inspiration, here's a link to his apology: "This evening I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility."

On the eve of the authors' deadline to opt-out of the Google Books settlement, the Authors Guild attacked Amazon (AMZN) in a blistering statement.

As we noted last week, Amazon, Microsoft (MFST), and Yahoo (YHOO) have banded together with the Open Book Alliance in opposing the Google Books settlement--an agreement reached through an Authors Guild lawsuit in federal court. The Authors Guild responded with an assault on Amazon's values, criticizing the low e-book prices that the online bookseller has set for the Kindle.

Here's more from the statement: "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. It won't do that forever, of course. Eventually, when enough readers are locked in to its Kindle, everyone in the industry expects Amazon to squeeze publishers and authors." (Via Publishers Weekly)