Bloomberg Businessweek seems to have been one of the first publications to report that 54 attorneys general in (49 states and five American territories) have collectively reached a $69 million antitrust settlement with Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers LLC and Simon & Schuster Inc., "over alleged price-fixing for electronic books." According to a press release from the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut, the three publishers "have agreed to pay a total of more than $69 million to consumers to resolve antitrust claims of an alleged unlawful conspiracy to fix the prices of electronic books (eBooks). They have also...

From Employeebenefits.co.uk: HarperCollins has introduced a digital device loan scheme that enables employees to purchase an iPad, laptop or non-contractual mobile phone for their personal use. The scheme offers the publishing firm's 900 UK staff an interest-free loan to buy a device, capped at a maximum spend of £500. Employees then repay the loan over a 12-month period through a salary sacrifice arrangement. The scheme is aligned with the company's focus on moving towards a digital business. More at the site....

HarperCollins recently announced a program to make all English-language e-book titles available around the world (and it’s about time, too!), but that’s not the only new initiative it’s launched lately. Another one is called “Epic Reads”, and is a digital community site aimed at getting teenagers connected with HarperTeen authors and books. Apart from the main “Epic Reads” site, there are also subsites focused on dystopian and paranormal fiction, or romance, realistic, and contemporary fiction. The sites feature integration with social networks, homepages for authors, and forums. The site is a bit bare-bones at this point, but HarperCollins has...

From the press release: HarperCollins Publishers today announced the creation of HarperCollins 360, a global publishing program for its authors. The goal of the initiative is to ensure that all books published by any division of HarperCollins around the world are available in print or digital format in all English-language markets. When the program is fully implemented, the HarperCollins global catalog -- 50,000 print books and 40,000 e-books -- will be available, limited only by the rights held, not by technology or geography. Authors published in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, India, and Canada will be listed, published, and available to...

Galleycat reports that children’s author Jean C. George has passed away at the age of 92. George is best known for her books Julie of the Wolves and My Side of the Mountain, the latter of which was one of the mainstays of my childhood reading. I will forever regret never having the chance to meet Mrs. George and tell her how much her book meant to me. (But given how many others did have that chance, I’m sure she already knew.) More recently, George was in the news as a result of her decision to license the e-book...

Best-selling author Paulo Coelho blogs that he has managed to talk publisher HarperCollins into offering ten of his eleven novels for 99 cents each. (The single exception is his best-known work, The Alchemist.) The promotion is valid for the USA and Canada only (though he is in talks with his Spanish and Portugese publishers to offer a similar deal), and is in effect in the Kindle, Nook, and iBooks stores. Coelho writes: This is a crucial decision for me. For years I have been advocating that free content is not a thread (sic) to the book...

PaidContent reports that a judge has stayed an e-book price-fixing class-action case against publishers Hachette and HarperCollins on the grounds that the publishers are close to settling with state governments over the matter, and the states’ lawsuits trump the class action. Apart from Macmillan and Penguin, who are fighting the suit, Simon & Schuster wasn’t named because it has not signed a formal settlement memorandum yet. This is hardly a surprise, of course, but it’s understandable that the plaintiffs would find this a bit disappointing; damage awards would likely be higher in a jury trial than in a state...

According to Blomberg, the DoJ has filed an anti-trust suit against Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster in the New York Federal District Court.  The suit alleges collusion in ebook pricing. The article doesn't say much more, as all parties have denied comment. From the TOR website comes this statement by John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan: Dear authors, illustrators and agents: Today the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Macmillan’s US trade publishing operation, charging us with collusion in the implementation of the agency model for e-book pricing. The charge is civil, not criminal. Let me start by saying that...

That's what the Wall Street Journal is reporting, but I can't find anything else about it, at least so far.  Here's what the Journal says: The Justice Department has warned Apple Inc. and five of the biggest U.S. publishers that it plans to sue them for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple persuaded publishers to change how they price their e-books before the late Steve Jobs introduced the iPad in 2010. Several of the parties have held talks to settle the antitrust case and head off a potentially damaging...

From an Article by Michael Kelley at Library Journal: Librarians’ passionate advocacy of our titles is vital to our efforts  and we remain committed to keeping our ebooks available in the library channel,” said Josh Marwell, Harper’s president of sales. Marwell said that the 26-loan cap remains a work in progress, but no other business model has emerged in the past year that makes more sense to the company. [Clip] The Municipal Library Consortium of St. Louis County (MLC), which consists of nine independent community libraries in Missouri, has now changed its mind about the boycott it approved last year. “A couple of months ago we started purchasing...

PaidContent reports that Open Road has filed a 14-page response to HarperCollin’s lawsuit over Jean C. George’s Julie of the Wolves e-book rights. The response went about as expected: Open Road is claiming that the contract for Julie of the Wolves does not cover e-books, and so HarperCollins does not have a leg to stand on in its lawsuit. Among other things, Open Road alleges that HarperCollins has not spent any money on advertising or promoting Julie of the Wolves since the mid 1970s, and that it never had any intention of producing a Julie of the Wolves e-book,...

Apropos of the HarperCollins v. Open Road lawsuit over the backlist e-book title Julie of the Wolves, legal blogger Passive Guy (aka contract lawyer David Vandagriff) has written a fairly lengthy post looking at the question of whether e-book rights are covered in pre-e-book contracts. Passive Guy writes: A fundamental legal question involved in construing a contract is what the parties intended at the time the contract was made. The intent must be manifest in some form in the written agreement. A secret intent by one party that the word tomato also includes avocado won’t bring...