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Judge Preliminarily Approves Revised Google Book Settlement

A federal judge today preliminarily approved a revised Google Book Settlement which removes most European authors from the deal. But the the Open Book Alliance still objects to the proposed settlement saying it gives Google a virtual monopoly on digital books.

In an order Thursday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan granted preliminary approval to the pact and set Feb. 18 as the date for a fairness hearing on the settlement. Last week, Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers submitted a revised agreement that would allow Google to distribute millions of digital copies of books online, but narrowed the number of books covered by the pact.

The revised settlement was designed to allay concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice and others that the original pact granted broad rights and immunities to Google and was anti-competitive. The Justice Department said earlier this week that its review of the revised settlement and its probe into the agreement is ongoing.

The Open Book Alliance's co-Chairman Peter Brantley said: "By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP, and the AG are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital-content access and distribution; usurp Congress' role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class-action process."

The hearing to determine fairness will give the objectors a forum to voice their opinions on the settlement.

Posted on November 19, 2009
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How To Make It As A Songwriter
Mary Dawson's new book, How to Get Somewhere in the Music Business from Nowhere with Nothing, gives you the inside scoop on how to make it in the music business as a songwriter. Mary teaches you all you need to know to make your songwriting dreams a reality. Click here to learn more.

Dan Brown Sets Ebook Sales Record for Random House

Crain's got ahold of an internal Random House memo which reveals that Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol increased the company's ebook sales by 400% over the prior year. In the first week alone, 100,000 copies were sold for the Kindle. That's a lot of ebooks sold.

According to an internal Random House report, sales of its Kindle e-books through September 2009 came to $22.6 million, an increase of almost 700% over the $2.9 million in revenue that the Kindle generated during the same period in 2008. The Lost Symbol was a big part of that growth. Published Sept. 15, the thriller sold 100,000 e-books its first week out, or about 5% of total sales for the book.

In the first half of 2009, Random House e-book revenue grew by 400%, says a spokesman. He declined to comment on the more recent numbers, which were disclosed to Crain's by an industry insider with access to the report. The majority of e-books are sold through Amazon's Kindle store.

Random House had sales of $1.3 billion in 2008, so ebooks are just a tiny part of that revenue. The internal report says that ebook sales are still in an "incubatory period" but that it is an exciting time.

Posted on November 18, 2009
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Melissa Rosenberg Talks New Moon Screenplay

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, who has adapted Stephenie Meyer's bestselling novels Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse into screenplays, talked to The L.A. Times about working with author Stephenie Meyer so closely to make sure the author's vision was translated into film, while still having her own stamp on the script.

In the first book, with "Twilight," I don�t think I even met her until I was well into a draft and I was worried about meeting her because she was the 500-pound gorilla, she was the heavyweight. I was really protective of my process. I was afraid. I didn�t know her from Adam, and I was afraid of getting run over and of not being able to create what I wanted to create or in some way have my voice stifled. When I met her, I realized, "Oh, that's not going to happen at all." But she was cautious too. She was looking at me going, "Are you going to butcher my child?" By the time I finished "Twilight," her reaction to it, it was still one of the great moments of my career, having the author say such wonderful things about the script. From that moment she relaxed about can I deliver and I relaxed about inviting her into my process.

I didn't have a director of "New Moon" until I was finished, so on "New Moon" I became much more involved with her, and with "Eclipse" I was getting her notes on the outline. With "Eclipse," because I was taking some liberties with the storytelling, it was really important to me that I stay true to her mythology, her voice. She gave me notes as far back as the outline and on every draft since. We�re very tight and very much in each other's world.

In case you've been hiding in a cave somewhere, New Moon will be released in every theater on the planet on Friday, November 20.

Posted on November 17, 2009
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Biopic Shows Enid Blyton as Cruel, Vindictive and a Terrible Mother

A new British television biopic of Enid Blyton stars Helena Bonham Carter. Helena studied the life of the famous author, whose children's books have sold 600 million copies around the world. She discovered that everyone agreed that Enid was not a very nice person, to say the least. Her last living child said she was a selfish bully and a terrible parent who was mean and spiteful, like a teenager who never grew up. She also was an adultress many times over.

Blyton lived at her cottage, Old Thatch, near the Thames at Bourne End, then at Green Hedges, a mock-Tudor house in Beaconsfield. Bonham Carter told a UK tabloid, "Enid's self-awareness was brilliant and she was incredibly controlling, too. I was attracted to the role because she was bonkers. She was an emotional mess and quite barking mad. What I found extraordinary, bordering on insane, was the way that Enid reinvented her own life. She was allergic to reality -- if there was something she didn't like then she either ignored it or re-wrote her life."

"She didn't like her mother, so let her colleagues assume she was dead. When her mother died, she refused to attend the funeral. Then the first husband didn't work out, so she scrubbed him out. There's also a scene in the film where her dog dies, but she carries on pretending he's still alive because she can't bear the truth."

*****

However, she was unable to relate as a normal mother with her two daughters Gillian and Imogen, with her first husband, Hugh Pollock. She is said to be distant and unkind to her younger daughter Imogen. Imogen Smallwood, 74, told the tabloid: "My mother was arrogant, insecure and without a trace of maternal instinct. Her approach to life was childlike, and she could be spiteful, like a teenager."

Imogen visited the set and told Helena that -- in addition to being cruel -- her mother always did everything very fast, so that she could get back to her writing and her fantasy worlds.

It sounds like it's going to be quite a biopic. It certainly won't be boring. Enid's books still sell 8 million copies a year.

Posted on November 16, 2009
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Comedy Writer David Lloyd Dead at 75

Emmy winning comedy writer David Lloyd has died. He was 75. Lloyd wrote the classic "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Lloyd died of prostate cancer Tuesday at his home in Beverly Hills, said his son, writer-producer Christopher Lloyd. "I do think he was the preeminent writer of television comedy," said Les Charles, co-creator of "Cheers," for which Lloyd wrote numerous episodes. "If you consider how long his career was and how much he wrote for such really popular shows, he's got to have been responsible for a record number of laughs in this world," Charles said.

His four-decade comedy career began with writing jokes for Jack Paar on "The Tonight Show" in 1962 and included writing for "The Bob Newhart Show," "Phyllis," "Rhoda," "Lou Grant," "Taxi," "Frasier" and many other shows. "He was a remarkable writer," said Allan Burns, who created "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" with James L. Brooks and began working with Lloyd when he moved to Hollywood from New York in 1974 to write for the series.

"The word 'wit' doesn't come up an awful lot when you're talking about television comedy, but that's what David was: a genuine wit," said Burns. "And he was just remarkable in his ability to write wonderful stuff very quickly. "I would sit at my desk and laugh out loud, which I don't do often. His drafts always made me laugh out loud and with such unexpected, off-the-wall humor."

Our condolences to his family and friends.

Posted on November 13, 2009
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