Mark Herron isn't exactly a media lawyer. His specialty is discrimination and employment rights, and most of his cases involve mistreatment in the workplace stemming from gender, race, or disability status.
That's what made the case of Karen Cahall v. New Richmond Exempted Village School District so interesting to him.
Apple is the latest tech company to be hit with a proposed class action lawsuit over unauthorized training of AI models using published books. On Friday, authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson filed a lawsuit in Northern California targeting Apple's "OpenELM" large language models, alleging the company "copied protected works without consent and without credit or compensation." The suit accuses Apple of using the Books3 dataset of pirated books and employing its own proprietary Applebot to scrap the web and, potentially, other online "shadow libraries."
On September 3, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and a coalition of library, museum, and cultural organizations filed an amicus brief in Rhode Island v. Trump, stating their solidarity with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Twenty-one states' attorneys general filed the case on April 4, and as of May 13, Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court of the District of Rhode Island had ordered a halt to the gutting of IMLS and two other federal agencies.
In an announcement that stunned industry veterans who remember publishing's drawn-out fair use battle with Google, Anthropic has reportedly reached a preliminary agreement with attorneys representing authors and publishers in a class action lawsuit that was only approved this summer.
As the calendar ticks toward September 30 and the end of fiscal 2025, at which time U.S. legislators will determine FY 2026 appropriations for public institutions, 21 states' attorneys general have asked the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island to enter a summary judgment in State of Rhode Island v. Trump. They seek a permanent injunction to keep the Institute of Museum and Library Services, along with the Minority Business Development Agency and Federal Conciliation and Remediation Service, fully staffed and operational.
These days, many people in the book business are taking the proverb "necessity is the mother of invention" more seriously than ever. Buffeted by inflation, flat sales, and consolidation in such areas as distribution and retailing, publishers are looking for different ways to break the traditional publishing mold. As Jonathan Merkh, CEO of hybrid publisher Forefront Books, puts it, "the time is ripe for innovation."
The number of Americans who read for pleasure has fallen by 40%, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of Florida and University College London have found that between 2003 and 2023, daily reading for reasons other than work and study fell by about 3% each year.
Right to read advocates hailed a Florida court's ringing defense of First Amendment rights this week. On August 13, U.S. District Court Judge Carlos E. Mendoza of the Middle District of Florida ruled in favor of plaintiffs in Penguin Random House v. Gibson, a lawsuit challenging Florida House Bill 1069. The decision came in a state besieged by school library book removals after threats of legal action by the state attorney general and education commissioner.
The class action lawsuit filed against Anthropic charging the AI company with illegally using pirated books to train its large language models continue to unfold at a rapid pace. On July 31, Anthropic filed an appeal asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn U.S. District Judge William Alsup's July 17 ruling that three writers suing Anthropic for copyright infringement can represent all other authors whose books the AI company allegedly pirated to train its AI model as part of a class action.
Terrible news from The Associated Press. Media Nation correspondent J.A. passes along this note from Anthony McCartney, the AP's global entertainment and lifestyle editor.