Posts Tagged: "Association of American Publishers"

Publishers Win Preliminary Injunction Against Maryland Law that Requires Licensing Digital Works to Libraries

Publishers scored a win yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland when the court granted their request for a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the Maryland Act, which essentially calls for compulsory licensing of electronic literary works to libraries on “reasonable terms”. The law went into effect on January 1, 2022. The lawsuit was brought by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) against the state of Maryland and charged that the Maryland Act was preempted by the U.S. Copyright Act. The Maryland Act requires publishers to 1) offer to license copyrighted electronic literary products, such as eBooks and digital audiobooks, to public libraries, and (2) to ensure the terms of such licenses are fair. The goal was to avoid up-charging and stringent licensing restrictions on libraries.

Eileen McDermott

February 17, 2022

Digital Resale & Copyrights: Why the Second Circuit Won’t Buy It

In 2011, ReDigi Inc. introduced technology that effectively attempted to establish a secondary market for “used” digital music files, where owners who had legally downloaded music files from iTunes could sell the music that they no longer wanted. In a nutshell, the system allowed the owner of a digital file to transfer the music to ReDigi’s cloud storage locker, from which ReDigi could then sell it to a willing buyer for a lower price than the cost of an “original” purchase from the iTunes Store. When a sale was made, Redigi would retain 60% of the sales price, while the seller and artist got 20% each. Although the process of transferring a file from an owner’s personal computer to ReDigi required that it be reproduced on ReDigi’s server, the system removed the file from the owner’s personal computer as the file was moved. Capitol Records, the copyright owner of many music files sold over the ReDigi system, sued ReDigi for copyright infringement, alleging that the company reproduced and distributed its copyrighted works without permission.

Lee Burgunder

October 11, 2017

Publishers Group Drops Copyright Claim against Google

The agreement between AAP and Google settles a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Google on October 19, 2005 by AAP member publishers (The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.; Pearson Education, Inc., Penguin Group (USA) Inc., and Simon & Schuster, Inc.). As the settlement is between only the AAP and Google, it does not affect Google’s current litigation with the Authors Guild or otherwise address the underlying questions in that suit. According to the press release issued by AAP and Google, court approval of the settlement will not be necessary.

Gene Quinn

October 4, 2012