Author sues bookstores for selling his book
Tim says: "More copyright absurdity: Publishers Weekly reports on an author who has filed suit against bookstores for selling his book."
According to [Valerie F. Horn, author Larry Townsend's attorney], [the author's distributor, Oklahoma-based Nazca Plains Corp] copied Townsend's works without permission and then distributed the books to the booksellers. This, she said, results in "liability to all those within the chain of distribution." Horn also added that whether the booksellers named knowingly or unknowingly sold ripped-off books is irrelevant, as per the copyright statute.Link
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So the lesson here is no book stores should ever sell his books. Sounds about right to me.
Being admittedly naive, I decided to Google Mr. Townsend to see what sort of material he wrote. Suffice to say, uh... yeah...
From the post I understand the problem is the illegal copying of the books, right? Somebody is making money selling fake copies of the book. I think it stinks. Like downloading MP3's and selling them, right?
The bookstores would have been acting in good faith. Were I a judge receiving this in a brief, I'd be calling a meeting in closed quarters and it would be very short.
@2, yeah, you'd have been safer (at work I presume?) reading the full article from Publishers Weekly.
And I have to agree with Bardfinn, I'm sure the stores were operating in good faith. Or at least, trying to be as submissive as possible.
If all books were digital and contained copyright protection code, this sort of abuse might not happen. Let's pray for the end of the kind of exploitation that primitive paper can lead too.
that headline's misleading. which is starting to be the trend at The House of Boing.
@7, huh? See, when I read it, it's dead-on. The main article on PW says almost the same thing, except "booksellers" is used insted of "bookstores". Can't imagine there's much difference.
The full article outlines exactly what the headline implies.
What about it is misleading?
How is the headline misleading? The article clearly states that over 40 booksellers are named in the lawsuit, and the author's attorney clearly states that the bookstores are liable.
It seems pretty clear that the publisher probably doesn't seem like a lucrative enough target and that is why the attorney is targeting the bookstores as well. Even if a judge throws it out eventually, the inconvenience to the booksellers is inexcusable if they were acting in good faith, which it sounds like they were. I think folks should let this attorney know that her tactics suck.
So he is not really suing them for selling his book, but for infringing on his copyright - for selling illegal copies of his book?
Might be worth mentioning in, say, the title of the article here on Boing Boing?
I agree your headline makes the article sound more interesting, but I'll take the fact over interesting, any day.
Here's a list of the named defendants from:
http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit.asp?id=36891
Herbert R Moseley
The Nazca Plains Corporation
Amazon.Com Inc
Barnes & Noble, Inc
Alibris, Inc
Half.com Inc
A Book Company, LLC
A-1 Books.Com
Valore Exchange LLC
Eros 1207
Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse
Ed Devereux
Jaguar Bookstore
Noir Leather
Castle Megastore
Fairvilla Megastore
Purple Passion, Inc
Calamus Bookstore
Atol Ltd
Circus of Books
The Noose
DBL Products Inc
The Leatherman, Inc
4th Avenue Distributing, LLC
Outloud!
Rinella Editorial Services
Baker & Taylor,Inc.
Black Hawk Leather
Appaloosa Business Services, Inc
Miami Books
Beyond the Closet Bookstore
Mephisto Leathers
Adult Video Megaplexxx
Outlandish Videos & Gifts
Media Shops, Inc
A Different Light
Obelisk
Rising Lambda
Brushstrokes
Second Skin Leather
Etcetera News, Inc
Body Language
Crossroads Market
Roes
Stan's Super Stores
Bob's News & Bookstore
Flaming Maggie's Books, Inc.
I'm interested in getting the filing but I don't want to sign up for an account with these guys. Anyone have access to the pdf any other way?
I didn't read beyond this headline. I'm just going to assume it's J. K. Rowling.
"I agree your headline makes the article sound more interesting, but I'll take the fact over interesting, any day."
Publisher's Weekly headline, actually. And I would maintain that calling the headline inaccurate is hairsplitting.
#11 Rob, Denmark: Um... The bookstores weren't making illegal copies of the book. No copies -> no copyright infringement, see? The bookstores were selling books, in good faith, and in lawful mercantile conduct, of which the author claims that they were illegally produced by his distributor.
Yes the headline conveys the meshugga circumstances of this case more appropriately and more succinctly than any other "factual" headline could.
Hmmmm... I seem to be friends with a number of the defendants.
My first instinct was that this case is like bootleg records where people are knowingly selling illegal goods.
But knowing the good reputations of several of the booksellers it sounds like there is a dispute between a publisher and an unpaid author - it would be interesting if this publisher ever had the rights to put these books out (i.e. did they have a prior financial arrangement). I don't see that these booksellers would knowingly sell illegal copies of the books, so I there is more going on.
I just find it funny that gay adult BDSM books are being covered in Publisher's Weekly.
By the way, what about the employee who drove the forklift from the printing press to the truck? The guy who drove the truck? The guy who stacked the books onto the shelves? What if a customer gave his book away after he bought it? (gasp!)
They're all copyright infringers, yes? They all have "liability within the chain of distribution". They all should have hired a copyright lawyer before they picked up the books to make sure that the previous guy didn't give them something infringing, yes? And another lawyer to make sure that the next guy's lawyer doesn't get it wrong about the previous guy's lawyer. And another lawyer to make sure that authors weren't lying about their copyrights in the first place. And then you can get sued anyway.
More importantly, as an author, you can sue all these guys individually to collect double and triple damages, yes?
come to think about it, isn't everyone here complicit by reading about it?
I didn't even read the headline so I'm in the clear.
Yeah.. because the bookstores check on whether or not the distributor printed the books with permission from the author.
crackhead screwed himself didn't he? I'd retaliate by refusing to ever sell any of his books again, regardless of distributor.
I'm even more in the clear because I just randomly made a comment on a random Boing Boing thread.
Wait, where am I? [just setting up my plausible deniability]
Larry Townsend
“Legendary”
October 1930 - 29 July 2008
Spill a drop for lost brothers…
Larry Townsend was the pseudonymous author of dozens of books including Run Little Leather Boy (1970) and The Leatherman’s Handbook (1972) at pioneer erotic presses such as Greenleaf Classics and the Other Traveler imprint of Olympia Press. Growing up as a teenager of Swiss-German extraction in Los Angeles a few houses from Noel Coward and Irene Dunne, he ate cookies with his neighbor Laura Hope Crews who was Aunt Pittypat in Gone with the Wind. He attended the prestigious Peddie School, and was stationed as Staff Sergeant in charge of NCOIC Operations of Air Intelligence Squadrons for nearly five years with the US Air Force in Germany (1950-1954). Completing his tour of duty, he entered into the 1950s underground of the LA leather scene where he and Montgomery Clift shared a lover. With his degree in industrial psychology from UCLA (1957), he worked in the private sector and as a probation officer with the Forestry Service. He began his pioneering activism in the politics of gay liberation in the early 1960s. In 1972, as president of the ‘Homophile Effort for Legal Protection’ which had been founded in 1969 to defend gays during and after arrests, he led a group in founding the H.E.L.P. Newsletter, the forebear of Drummer (1975). As a writer and photographer, he was an essential eyewitness of the drama and salon around Drummer in which his novels were often excerpted. His signature “Leather Notebook” column appeared in Drummer for twelve years beginning in 1980, and continued in Honcho to Spring 2008. His last novel, TimeMasters, was published April 2008. This new thumbnail biography, approved and updated by Larry Townsend, is reprinted from the leather-heritage book Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer which, published June 20, 2008, also includes Larry’s “Eyewitness Introduction,” his last published writing.