In March, a US federal court ruled that Tracy Wolff’s Crave series did not plagiarize or infringe on Lynne Freeman’s work. Rather, the two stories simply share a lot of common fantasy tropes, and that’s not against the law. Read the judgment.
Now, the defendants, which include the publisher Entangled and agent Emily Sylvan Kim, are suing Freeman to cover their legal fees, which total more than $3.4 million. (Entangled spent the most on defense, about $2.7 million.) US copyright law allows for the prevailing party to recover legal fees, although it’s discretionary and not automatic. Learn more.
To explore even further: In late 2024, I ran a long analysis of the Crave series copyright case.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
