Melville House Books

Literature & the law

• Hemingway: not above the law, it would seem

  It’s that time of year again: the annual Hemingway lookalike competition in Florida is approaching. In preparation, one Frank Louderback, an attorney and regular entrant, made all manner of plans… Read more »

• Copyright concerns, the new way to make something disappear

  The Vancouver Province newspaper took down a cartoonist’s parody video from their website, after the oil company depicted in the cartoon allegedly threatened to pull funding, says Leigh Beadon on Tech Dirt.… Read more »

• The new copyright agreement you don’t know about

  A United States trade agreement is being negotiated in secret that includes a set of copyright rules thought to be even more stringent than the defeated and much maligned bills SOPA… Read more »

• Self-published author loses libel battle against reviewer

  A self-published author who tried to sue a man over negative reviews posted on Amazon lost the case, and will be forced to pay legal bills of around £100,000. We… 2 / Read more »

• Facebook asserts trademark in the word ‘book’

  Bad news, fellow publishers. We’ve been so busy fretting about Amazon’s tyranny, bookshop closures, and the rise of the ebook, that we’ve missed the fatal threat posed to us by Facebook.… 2 / Read more »

• An arms trafficker’s reading list

  What’s Viktor Bout, the convicted international arms trafficker, reading these days? In an interview with Nicholas Schmidle of The New Yorker, Bout—who is currently awaiting sentencing at Manhattan Correctional Center… Read more »

• The advantages for a writer of not being yourself

  When a novelist is published for the first time their potential is limitless. They could be a bestseller, a literary sensation, a genius. But the moment the reviews have run… Read more »

• Bernard Schlink sues the Weinsteins: There is no gross

  Swiss publisher Diogenes and author Bernard Schlink are suing The Weinstein Company, claiming that the studio is fraudulently overstating production costs for The Reader and thereby avoiding paying “2.5%-5% of… Read more »

• Kindle users and library patrons made equal in privacy, but only in California

  It’s almost impossible to resist peeking at a friend’s bookshelf when we’re invited into their home.  But this sentiment becomes a little scarier when it isn’t a welcome guest snooping… Read more »

• Harper’s includes Amazon in its “new network” of monopolies; major publishing CEO calls Amazon’s CEO “dangerous”

  An essay in the February issue of Harper’s Magazine, “Killing the Competition: How the new monopolies are destroying open markets,” by Barry C. Lynn, includes Amazon in a growing list of… Read more »