Legal
- An appeals court rules that publishers are not required to send physical copies of books to the US Copyright Office. A small publisher filed suit against the US Copyright Office over its requirement that publishers submit print copies of their books, or otherwise pay fines. A judge ruled that such a requirement was unconstitutional. Interestingly, the case revealed that nearly half of the books collected by the government are not kept. In 2018 the Library of Congress gave away 76,129 volumes as surplus and destroyed an unknown quantity of others. Read a 2021 summary of the case (before appeal).
AI
- The US Copyright Office seeks public comment on copyright issues raised by AI. The office is now assessing whether legislative or regulatory steps in the area of copyright and AI might be warranted (yes, please) and “seeks comment on these issues, including those involved in the use of copyrighted works to train AI models, the appropriate levels of transparency and disclosure with respect to the use of copyrighted works, and the legal status of AI-generated outputs.” Learn more.
- Strictly AI-generated work still doesn’t get copyright protection. An appeals court agreed with the US Copyright Office’s decision to deny copyright registration to a computer-generated artwork. But the case in question is straightforward because a human did not play any role in creating the work. More challenging cases are to come. Read Riddhi Setty and Isaiah Poritz at Bloomberg Law.
- Google/YouTube tries to have it both ways with copyright. YouTube has to keep the music industry happy, which means inventing a custom (and extralegal) right to artists’ voices. Meanwhile, Google claims fair use when training its generative AI models using the open web. Read Nilay Patel at The Verge.
- Yes, ChatGPT and other models are trained on pirated books. This was already known to some extent, but this article puts it all in black and white. Read Alex Reisner at The Atlantic (subscription required).
- The New York Times considers legal action against OpenAI. Talks between the two companies about a licensing agreement have broken down. Read Bobby Allyn at NPR.
Marketing & Promotion
- How to start thinking about book publicity before meeting with a publicist. This is a helpful and concrete look at how to plan your book marketing and promotion effort—even if you don’t plan on hiring a publicist! Read Cassie Mannes Murray at Pine State Publicity.
Culture & Politics
- The founder of Skyhorse has funded Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s campaign. Publisher Tony Lyons has long courted controversy in book publishing circles, not least by publishing books that others have dropped—like Woody Allen’s memoir. Read Elizabeth A. Harris in the New York Times.
- The hottest name in literary criticism: Merve Emre. It’s unusual for there to be such a scintillating and long profile of a literary critic, much less for it to appear at Business Insider. But here it is! Read Anna Silman.
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.