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Investor group buys Houghton MifflinBOSTON, Massachusetts, October 31, 2002 -- Book publisher Houghton Mifflin, based in Boston, has been sold by the French conglomerate Vivendi Universal to a group of private equity investors. The purchaser, a consortium of Thomas H. Lee Partners, the Blackstone Group, Bain Capital and Apax Partners, offered US$1.7 billion. The deal completes the disposal of Vivendi's publishing businesses, which at one time included French magazines and newspapers and textbook and trade book publishers in Europe and Latin America. The selling price, far less than Vivendi paid for Houghton 1-1/2 years ago, gives the company some of the cash it needs to deal with pressing problems in other units that have been identified as core to its future.
What this means for authors: Typical of equity investors, the Lee-Blackstone consortium has been frank that it has no long-term interests in publishing. The consort\ium is expected to begin assessing Houghton assets and sell them in chunks, probably to other publishers, when market conditions bespeak a good return on investment. The process is expected to take three years, four max. |
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|  VIVENDI
 HOUGHTON
MIFFLIN
CONSORTIUM
PARTNERS
Thomas H. Lee
Partners
Boston
Blackstone Group
New York
Bain Capital
Boston
Apax Partners
London
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With Vivendi units, Lagardere is France's largest| PARIS, October 30, 2002 -- French media company Lagardere, which already owns the country's second-largest publishing company, will become the country's No. 1 publisher with its US$1.7 billion acquisition of Vivendi publishing units. Vivendi's publishing assets leave Lagardere with 80 percent of France's educational book market, 70 percent of distribution and 60 percent of paperback publishing. Too much? Anticipating the acquisition, 20 independent publishers vowed an appeal to French and European Union competition authorities. It is expected that Lagardere will be required to sell some of the Vivendi assets to satisfy the anti-trust concerns. |
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| VIVENDI
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 | McGraw-Hill: Revenue for the third quarter increased 2.8% percent to $1.6 billion, compared to a year earlier. Net income grew 15.3% to $276.2 million.
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 | Scholastic: Sales grew 18.2 percent to $11.7 millon in thehalf-year that ended August 31, compared to a year earlier. Net income grew 26.2 pecent to $4 million.
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Publishers honor Winfrey's literary effect| WASHINGTON, October 29, 2002 -- The U.S. publishing industry will pay formal tribute to television superstar Oprah Winfrey for her unique contribution to the nation's literary life. Winfrey will receive the AAP Honors, an award from the Association of American Publishers for significant achievements to promote American books and authors. Through her on-the-air reading club, Winfrey brought works of literary excellence to the attention of a wide audience, AAP said. Past recipients include C-SPAN founder
Brian Lamb, who created weekend programming on books. |
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | T. Barton Carter (communications), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Bill Loving(journalism), University of Oklahoma, wrote the 10th edition of Law of Mass Communications: Freedom and Control of Print and Broadcast Media (Foundation). |
| Jane Fisher, formerly with Newbridge, Macmillan and Scholastic, was named senior vice president for book clubs. |
 | John E. McMurry (chemistry), Cornell University, wrote the fifth edition of Fundamentals of Organic Chemistry (Brooks/Cole). |
 | Steven M. Gillon (history), University of Oklahoma, and Cathy D. Matson, (history), University of Delaware, wrote The American Experiment: A History of the United States (Houghton Mifflin). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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U.S. publishers step up piracy crackdown| WASHINGTON, October 29, 2002 -- An intellectual property lawyer, Patricia Judd, was appointed international copyright enforcement director for the Association of American Publishers. Judd promptly left for Asia for three weeks of meetings with U.S. and local government officials and groups working on piracy and counterfeiting issues. U.S. publishers tripled their funding to combat piracy in 2001. Since then, raids have turned 600,000 counterfeit English language books in Korea, illegal copyshop operations near college campuses in Malaysia, and numerous other illegal operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia. AAP President Pat Schroeder promised more progress: "With a new copyright enforcement director who has the perfect background for the job, we now can focus on bringing home the message to foreign officials that the price for full membership in the international trading community is meaningful enforcement of their copyright laws." |
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Government challenged on library, shop seizures| WASHINGTON, October 29, 2002 -- A coalition of free-speech and electronic-rights groups sued the U.S. Department of Justice to extract information about the government's application of the Patriot Act. The suit asks how often the government has used the 2001 act, passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to seize bookstore and library records to check on what individuals are reading. The law also gags bookstore and library personnel from reporting what's happened. The Justice Department has refused to divulge how it has used the act, although it's known that some records have been seized. Bringing the suit are the American Bookselling Foundation for Free Expression, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the American Library Association's Freedom to Read Foundation. The Association of American Publishers is "totally and completely in support of the litigation," a spokesperson said. Besides balking at the plaintiff's queries in the past, the Justice Department has refused to answer questions from its Congressional oversight committee. The department has 30 days to respond to new suit. |
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McGraw lists adds pharmaceutical booksNEW YORK, October 29, 2002 -- McGraw-Hill Medical Publishing will sell and distribute worldwide books published by the American Pharmaceutical Association, which produces a dozen books and electronic products a year. The addition of APhA's list makes McGraw-Hill Education "the premier distributor of medical information worldwide," said Michael Hays, publisher of the Science, Technical and Medical Group of McGraw-Hill Education. Among APhA's 33 titles in print:Lloyd Allen Jr., The Art, Science, and Technology of Pharmaceutical Compounding.
Rosemary Berardi and others, editors, Handbook of Nonprescription Drugs
Michael Cohen, editor, Medication Errors.
Ray Rowe, Paul SheskeyPaul Weller, editors, Handbook of Pharmaceutical Excipients. |
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Best guess of Houghton bid: $1.7 billionPARIS, France, October 28, 2002 -- The French company that owns U.S. textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin is prepared to take a bath in selling the company, insiders said. A group of private equity firms -- Blackstone, Thomas Lee, KKR and Apax -- are willing to pay US$1.7 billion. Two other bidders are close, the sources said. When Vivendi International bought Houghton in an aggressive expansionary period, it paid US$1.7 billion but also assumed $500 million in debt -- $2.2 billion total. Some sources say Vivendi will announce theBlackstone group as Houghton's new owner in a few days.
What this means for authors: The Blackstone group, if it acquires Houghton, would be expected to pump resources into the company with the goal of reselling it, whole or in part, within two to three years at a handsome return. |
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| VIVENDI
HOUGHTON
MIFFLIN
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Profs see e-texts coming on strong| TORONTO, Ontario, October 28, 2002 -- An independent survey sponsored by McGraw-Hill Ryerson found that 42 percent of U.S. and Canadian professors expect to be using e-texts within two years. Today 4 percent use e-texts. The survey sampled more than 1,800 faculty. Said Henry Hirschberg, president of the McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Professional and International Group: "The faculty assigned a high degree of significance to the role web-based content, tools and applications played in accomplishing all three." Eighty-three percent were almost unanimous that web-based technology is a key contributor to student success. The survey found that 56 percent use the web to supplement textbooks and 51 percent use the web to ensure up-to-date course content. |
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Survey: U.S. schools short of textbooks| WASHINGTON, October 27, 2002 -- One out of six U.S. elementary and secondary school teachers who use textbooks in their classes say they do not have enough books for every child, according to a survey by the National Education Association and the Association of American Publishers. The shortage is most acute in urban schools, where 39 percent of teachers say they do not have enough textbooks to assign homework, but even suburban teachers report an inadequate supply, the survey reported. "Textbooks are the most basic classroom resource there is, and yet the nation is failing to provide enough funding for each student to have one," said Reg Weaver, president of the NEA. "It's just not fair to ask educators to provide a world-class education for our students and then give them second-class resources, if any at all, to do it." The survey, conducted with a 1,000-teacher sample in June 2002 showed little change from a similar survey in 1996. |
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Investors unsure on Houghton sale prospects| PARIS, France, October 27, 2002 -- On the day that French conglomerate Vivendi announced its decision to sell its French but not U.S. publishing assets, the company stock fell as much as 7.5 percent. Investors seemed unsure what to think about the prospects for Vivendi to unload its U.S. textbook unit, Houghton Mifflin, at anything near the $2.2 billion that the company paid for its in 2001. Vivendi said it seeks a "significantly higher" offer than it received from Lagardere and two other bidders. Shares of Lagardere rose as much as 5.6 percent after the announcement that it would take over Vivendi's French publishing assets. Since Lagardere announced in September that it would bid for the assets, it shares have gained 13 percent. |
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| VIVENDI
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
| Wayne Friedman, vice president for publishing operations and marketing at Troll Communications, was named senior vice president for home and school sales at Troll Communications. |
 | Robert J. Bensley (health), Western Michigan University, and Jodi Brookins-Fisher (health), Central Michigan University, wrote the second edition of Community Health Education Methods: A Practitioner's Guide (Jones and Bartlett). |
 | Janet A. Kourany (women's studies), University of Notre Dame, wrote The Gender of Science (Prentice Hall). |
 | Kathy Peiss (history), University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas G. Paterson, (history), general editor, University of Connecticut, wrote Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality: Documents and Essays (Houghton Mifflin). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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Copyright limits relaxed for web courses| WASHINGTON, October 27, 2002 -- The U.S. House approved a plan to relax restrictions on professors who want to use copyrighted material for online courses. The vote, 400-4, puts the proposal before a House-Senate conference committee. The Senate approved its own version earlier. Under the bill, online courses may incorporate plays, musical dramas and operas without the permission of the copyright owner. The bill amends the original law, which allowed only nondramatic literary and musical works. |
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Amazon won't yield on suppression demand| SEATTLE, Washington, October 27, 2002 -- Online book retailer Amazon will not pull David L. Riegel's Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers from its web site, the company announced. The announcement is a response to the conservative United States Justice Foundation, which has threatened to sue if the Rigel title weren't removed. Foundation attorney Richard Ackerman said Amazon was making it too easy to bring children into contact with "that sick world." Responding, Amazon spokesperson Patricia Smith said: "We believe that providing open access to written speech, no matter how controversial or ugly, is one of the most important things we do. And we will continue to make controversial works available in the U.S. and every where else, except where they are specifically prohibited by law." |
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South Dakota to assess Palm experiment| VERMILLION, South Dakota, October 26, 2002 -- The University of South Dakota, which last year required freshmen to have handheld PDAs for classes, has convened a committee to evaluate the project. Donald C. Dahlin, university president, said the potential of personal digital assistants for college students hasn't been realized yet. So far, students can download lecture notes and professor-generated learning materials -- as well as correspond with each other, maintain schedules and address books, and perform usual PDA tasks. To start the experiment, the university bought 1,000 high-end Palm devices that sell for as much as $400 and sold them to students fo $150. The university also installed synch servers so students could download and upload data almost anywhere. |
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Merger ahead for Kluwer, Bertelsmann journals?| LONDON, October 25, 2002 -- The business infrastructure for the academic journal business, already in flux, may be in for bigger changes. The London-based private equity firms Candover Partners and Cinvin ,which bought Kluwer Academic this month, may next buy Bertelsmann / Springer, according to informed sources. With Bertelsmann / Springer valued at US$1billion, and with Kluwer Academic having commanded $520 million, the combined companies would be a close second to Reed Elsevier's scientific, medical and technical publishing enterprise. Reed has been said to have considered bidding for Bertelsmann / Springer, but such a deal surely would encounter objections from European Union regulatory authorities. In fact, a 1997 attempt by Reed to merge with Wolters Kluwer, the former of Kluwer Academic,was quashed by regulators. Also, acquiring Bertelsmann / Springer could be more than Reed can handle while it's working to integrate its 2001 acquisition of Harcourt's STM operations. |
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KLUWER
ACADEMIC
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | William Bruce Wheeler (history), University of Tennessee, and Susan D. Becker, (history), University of Tennesse, wrote the fifth edition of Discovering the American Past: A Look at the Evidence (Houghton Mifflin). |
 | John Jude Moran (business), Wagner College, wrote the second edition of Employment Law (Prentice Hall). |
 | David W. Oxtoby (chemistry), University of Chicago, H. Pat Gillis (chemistry), University of California, Los Angeles, and Norman H. Nachtrieb (chemistry), University of Chicago and University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote the fifth edition of Principles of Modern Chemistry (Brooks/Cole). |
| Curtis Thompson, executive vie president and chief financial officer at ViewWriter Technologies, was named chief operating officer at Troll Communications. |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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Surgery journal on web two months early| CHICHESTER, United Kingdom, October 24, 2002 -- The January issue of the British Journal of Surgery will be available on the web by November 1 -- two months before the print edition. "It is no longer sufficient to publish solely on paper," said Chris Russell, chair of the society that publishes the journal. "To support rapid communication to a global audience, professional and innovative electronic publishing is now vital." The online version is being posted on the Wiley InterScience EarlyView service. Also, the journal will be available on the InterScience MobileEdition that specializes in delivering new research to handheld devices. Russell said the availability on MobileEdition "reflects an increasing trend among medical practitioners to look to their PDAs for portable, convenient information and services." He said the journal has evolved "from the shelves of medical libraries, to the convenience of the workstation, and now to the portability of the pocket." |
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| FINAL DRAFTS: At the end of a lifetime of creative work, authors may have more literary assets than they realize. How will copyrights, letters, unpublished papers and contractual relations be settled? Lawyers Lloyd Jassin and Ron Finkelstein, both experts in estate planning, suggest a literary executor -- not just a general executor -- to deal with these sometimes-complex issues. If books or manuscripts comprise a substantial part of your assets, Jassin and Finkelstein say that now is the time to consider tax and estate planning issues. |
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Vivendi keeps Houghton for time beingPARIS, France, October 23, 2002 -- Cash-short Vivendi, the Paris-headquartered conglomerate, chose to sell its French publishing operations to a rival French publisher, Lagardere -- but not its Houghton Mifflin textbook unit in the United States. Vivendi said it will seek more bidders for Houghton. Offers that included Houghton, insiders said, would have generated far less extra money than the $2.2 billion that the company paid to acquire the Boston-based publishing house 1-1/2 years ago. Houghton will be sold soon, however, even if a "significantly higher" offer fails to materialize, sources said. The sale of French publishing assets to Lagardere, for US$1.2 billion, assuages French national pride. There had been concern that non-Franco interests would take over "national treasures." The deal is complex. The actual purchaser is Natexis Banques Populaires, part of one of Francešs largest banks, which is buying the Vivendi assets of behalf of Lagardere. The arrangement will allow the sale to go through without needing immediate approval from regulators. Also, immediate approval will generate cash that the parent Vivendi company needs to stay current with its debt.
What this means for authors: Houghton authors remain on pins and needles about whether their titles may end up and become "lost" in a competitor publishing's giant list. Look for a decision on Houghton by early November. |
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| Norah Booth. "False Light: An Illuminating Look at Libel," Poets & Writers Volume 30 (September / October 2000), Number 5. Pages 83-85. Booth, herself a nonfiction writer, says that biographers and other nonfiction authors need to be aware a recent trend in a subset of defamation law: False light / invasion of privacy." A finding of "false light," she reports, requires only that untrue statements be "highly offensive to one's sensibilities." She has advice for reducing vulnerability. |
| Albert N. Greco. "Market Concentration in the U.S. Consumer Book Industry: 1995-1996," Journal of Cultural Economics, Volume 24 (November 2000): Number 4. Pages 321 to 336. |
| Gilbert T. Sewall and Peter Cannon, "The New World of Textbooks: Industry Consolidation and its Consequences," in Philip G. Altbach, G.P. Kell, H.G. Petrie and L.W. Weis, editors. Textbooks in American Society: Politics, Policy and Pedagogy. State University of New York Press, 1991. |
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| READINGS. PERFORMANCES
To celebrate the love of reading |
Festival draws 45,000 bookwormsWASHINGTON, October 23, 2002 -- Attendance at the second National Book Festival last week passed 45,000, more than half a many as the inaugural festival a year earlier. The turnout was despite the possibility of rain and fears about a sniper stalking the Maryland and Virginia areas around Washington. The throngs visited displays in clusters of large white tents stretching across the Capitol's broad lawns. First Lady Laura Bush, host for the event, opened the festivities to an audience of authors at the White House. "Let this festival remind us of the pure joy of the bookworm -- the one who sits in a quiet corner and focuses on just one thing, devouring a story or argument or idea unfolding on the written page," she said. "Our love of reading is what makes us tuck a paper under our arm on the way to work. "It's why our bedside tables include piles of books that we read before we fall asleep, or continue reading long after we should be asleep."
| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
| Dwight L. Teeter (mass communication), Boston University, Marc A. Franklin (law), Stanford University, and Jay B. Wright (law), Syracuse University, wrote the eighth edition of The First Amendment and the Fourth Estate: The Law of Mass Media (Foundation). |
| Gary Richardson, of Zondervan Corporation, was named publisher, education, at McGraw-Hill Children's Publishing. |
| Mauricio Sahene, chief executive at Avon Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, was named vice president, Spanish Publishing at Scholastic. |
 | William Lawhead (philosophy), University of Mississippi, wrote the second edition of The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach with Free Philosophy (McGraw-Hill). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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Total K-12 sales pass $12 billionROCKAWAY PARK, New York, October 23, 2002 -- The U.S. school market for instructional materials topped $12 billion, a record, in the 2000-2001 school year, Education Market Research reported. The total, almost $12.3 billion, was 2.5 percent ahead of a year earlier. EMS said growth has averaged 7.1 percent a year since 1995-1996. Here are the latest data by category with the change from a year earlier.Technology products
Texts, other materials
Trade books, supplements
Periodicals, tests |
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| $ 6.1 billion
2.5 billion
1.8 billion
1.9 billion |
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| -1.2 percent
6.0 percent
5.7 percent
6.7 percent |
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DATA BANK INDEX
Thomson buys 40 Peacock titlesBELMONT, California, October 22, 2002 -- The social and behavioral titles of the F.E. Peacock publishing house in Illinois, including Grinnell's Social Work Research & Evaluation, were acquired by Thomson. Terms were not announced. The deal involves 40 titles, which Thomson said will be enhanced with online instructor and student features. Included in the deal:Jon Bond, Richard A. Watson and Kevin B.Smith, Promise and Performance of American Democracy, sixth edition.
Raymond J. Corsini and Denny Wedding, editors, Current Psychotherapies, sixth edition.
Richard M. Grinnell, Social Work Research & Evaluation, sixth edition.
Richard H. Robbins, Cultural Anthropology, third edition.
Elizabeth A. Segal and Stephanie Brzuzy, Social Welfare Policy, Programs and Practice.
Lawrence Shulman, Skills of Helping Individual Families, Groups and Communities, fourth edition.
Stuart H. Taub and Craig B. Little, Theories of Deviance, fifth edition. |
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Biomedicine author wins Nobel Prize| OSLO, Norway, October 21, 2002 -- A biomedicine author, H. Robert Horvitz, and fellow researchers Sydney Brenner and John Sulston won the Nobel Prize in the physiology / medicine category. The prize recognized work on how genes regulate organ development and cell death. Horvitz also holds the Wiley Prize in biomedical sciences for work in defining the genetic and molecular basis of programmed cell death. Horvitz is with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |
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Study: Education publishers lead productivityDARIEN, Connecticut, October 21, 2002 -- In a new index of publishing productivity, the book industry newsletter Subtext lists McGraw-Hill at the top. Close behind are two other major educational publishers, WRC Media and Pearson. Subtext ranked productivity on operating income per employee. The newsletter acknowledged that meaningful comparisons are difficult because only inconsistent data are available. Also, some large publishers, including Houghton Mifflin, were not included because consolidations obscure the reality in the public filings from which Subtext drew its data. "Still," said the newsletter, "a definite if not surprising pattern does emerge: Educational publishers were the top performers."McGraw-Hill
WRC Media
Pearson Education
John Wiley & Sons
Reed Elsevier
Reader's Digest
Thomson
Scholastic
Wolters Kluwer
Thomas Nelson |
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| $ 56,240
56,000
53,900
38,540
31,770
31,600
29,770
18,600
15,360
11,430 |
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DATA BANK INDEX
Equity firm buys Kluwer Academic| LONDON, October 21, 2002 -- London-based private equity firms Candover Partners and Cinvin have agreed to buy Wolters Kluwer's academic publishing unit. The price: US$580 million. Cinven and Candover will be 50-50 partners. Also bidding were Taylor & Francis, John Wiley & Sons and Reed Elsevier. Kluwer Academic's parent company, Wolters Kluwer put the subsidiary on the market after a decision to focus on its core activities: Publishing for business, health. legal and tax professionals. |
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Vivendi has two binding bids; third due| PARIS, October 21, 2002 -- Two bids, both less than the hoped-for US$3.5 billion, have been received for the publishing assets of the conglomerate Vivendi International, according to press reports. Posting binding bids are a consortium including the equity firm Blackstone and another including the French media giant Lagardere. A third bid is expected from the Carlyle Group. Insiders were quoted that Vivendi will announce the winning bidder within days. The Vivendi publishing group, VUP, includes U.S. educational publisher Houghton Mifflin.
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | David Bishop (computer science), Grinnell College, wrote Introduction to Cryptography with Java Applets (Jones and Bartlett). |
| Lisa Carmona, educational products manager at McGraw-Hill Children's Publishing, was named executive editor, education. |
 | Wendell L. French (business), University of Washington, wrote the fifth edition of Human Resources Management (Houghton Mifflin). |
 | Nancy K. Kubasek (business), Bowling Green State University, Bartley A. Brennan (business), Bowling Green State University, and Neil M. Browne (business), Bowling Green State University, wrote the third edition of Legal Environment of Business, A Critical Thinking Approach (Prentice Hall). |
| Jay Shah, chief financial officer at Triumph Learning, was named to additional duties as chief operating officer. |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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Publishers decry unauthorized coursepack contentDANVERS, Massachusetts, October 21, 2002 -- In filing a suit against a copyshop that produces coursepacks for University of Florida classes, the plaintiff publishers all issued brief statements to explain their position. The statements:Mark Seeley, general counsel for litigant Elsevier Science: "When a coursepack producer engages in mass photocopying of rightsholders' materials for its own profit, without clearing rights as so many other coursepack producers properly do, that constitutes large-scale copyright infringement. It severely harms both the creators and the publishers of those materials."
Richard S. Rudick, general counsel for Wiley: "Coursepacks have become an integral part of the teaching experience, supplementing textbooks and other original materials. They are also an important revenue source for rightsholders who deserve just compensation for use of their intellectual properties. We intend to continue our ongoing compliance activities and will pursue through court action, as necessary, instances of infringement. By undertaking compliance activity, we defend our copyrights and help maintain a level playing field for those organizations that do comply with copyright law."
Rebecca McLeod, journals manager of The MIT Press: "Respect for copyright is important to progress in the sciences and the arts. If publishers, authors and other creators are not fairly compensated for reuse of their work, incentive to produce new works may be stifled. We take very seriously copyright compliance by those who use our works." |
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Ex-Vivendi chief stays in media biz| DOVER, Delaware, October 20, 2002 -- The ousted chief executive of Vivendi, Jean-Marie Messier, blamed for leading the company to the brink of bankruptcy, filed papers of incorporation in Delaware to set up a private equity firm that will focus on investments in media businesses. Messier was removed by Vivendi's board of directors in June. The company , based in Paris, now is liquidating major components, including U.S. textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin, to meet debt payments. |
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Chemistry author wins Nobel Prize| OSLO, Norway, October 17, 2002 -- The author of NMR of Proteins and Nucleic Acids, Kurt Wüthrich, won the Nobel Prize for chemistry with fellow researchers John Fenn of Virginia Commonwealth University and Koichi Tanaka of the Shimadzu Corporation. The Nobel Prize recognizes the invention of procedures to identify proteins and produce three-dimensional images of them. The invention has proven invaluable in cancer diagnosis as well as to the pharmaceutical discovery process. Wüthrich, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, is a member of the editorial board of a number of journals, including Biopolymers; Proteins: Structure, Function, and Genetics; and ChemBioChem. |
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | Eileen Boris (history), University of California, Santa Barbara, Nelson Lichtenstein (history), University of California, Santa Barbara, and Thomas G. Paterson, (history), general editor, University of Connecticut, wrote the second edition of Major Problems in the History of American Workers (Houghton Mifflin). |
 | Peter Mather (education), Glendale Community College, and Rita Romero McCarthy (education), Glendale Community College, wrote the second edition of Reading and All That Jazz (McGraw-Hill). |
 | Arthur O'Sullivan (economics), Lewis & Clark College, and Steven M. Sheffrin (economics), University of California, Davis, wrote the third edition of Macroeconomics: Principles and Tools (Prentice Hall). |
| Please
tell
us
about
your
latest
project:
EDITOR |
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Vivendi again delays bid deadline| PARIS, October 15, 2002 -- Cash-short French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal again postponed the auction of its publishing business, which includes U.S. textbook company Houghton Mifflin. Formal bids were due October 15, but, according to insiders, potential bidders have adjusting their proposals downward amid growing concerns. Now, so a new audit can be completed, Vivendi has put back the deadline until the end of October. Whether the audit is a routine part of the sale process is unclear. Before potential bidders began retreating in their proposals, bids were expected to be in the US$3 billion to US$3.5 billion range. One report says Vivendi may change gears and not offer its publishing unit, Vivendi Universal Publishing, as a single unit and instead try to raise more money by selling VUP units piece by piece. By selling individual units, like Houghton, Vivendi would likely attract more bidders because less cash would be necessary. Vivendi is in a balancing act: The delay may mean more cash, but on the flip side, it postpones receiving desperately needed cash to pay debts. |
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Cancer claims author Stephen Ambrose| BAY ST. LOUIS, Mississippi, October 13, 2002 -- Historian Stephen E. Ambrose, many of whose best-selling books were widely read in history courses, died at a hospital of lung cancer that was diagnosed in April. He was 66. Ambrose's early works included multi-volume biographies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon. His works became popular in the 1990s, especially those on World War II. Almost all 35 Ambrose books were published by Simon & Schuster. At his prolific peak Ambrose issued a book a year, many with assistance from family members. His best-seller Undaunted Courage, the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, earned him more than $4 million. In 2001 Ambrose was accused of picking up narrative passages from other author's books. To charges of plagiarism, Ambrose conceded that he should have used quotation marks more often but that his copying represented only a few pages among the thousands he had written and that his sources all were identified in footnotes. |
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|  AMBROSE
35 titles
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Publishers sue Florida coursepack producer| GAINESVILLE, Florida, October 13, 2002 -- Three major publishers sued a Gainesville copyshop in federal court, alleging large-scale copying of copyright-protected materials from books and journals. The publishers contend that Custom Copies and its president, Kenneth F. Roberts, reproduced materials in inexpensive packets for sale to University of Florida students without buying permissions from the publishers. "Coursepacks" combine materials from a variety of sources that professors specify for their classes, usually in lieu of textbooks, leaving it to the copyshops that produce them to pay copyright owners for the rights to reproduce them and to pass those costs on to students. The suit was coordinated by the Copyright Clearance Center, which has financed showcase actions in recent years to discourage illegal copying. Attorney Frederic Haber at the Copyright Clearance Center said permissions are easy to obtain through CCC: "We process hundreds of thousands of requests from thousands of coursepack producers each year for the production of photocopies of copyrighted works, and a large portion of them can be copyright-cleared in a matter of seconds. Haber said that all the materials in the Custom Copies case were available for permissions. The plaintiff publishers are Elsevier Science, MIT Press, and John Wiley & Sons. |
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PLAIN-
TIFFS
Elsevier
Science
MIT Press
John Wiley
& Sons |
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Troll attracts equity-firm funding| PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, October 11, 2002 -- An equity firm, LLR Partners, put $7.5 million into education and direct-market publisher Troll Communications. The funds will hasten Troll's expansion through internal growth and niche expansions, said chief executive Peter Bergen. In August, another private equity firm, Quad Ventures, also invested in Troll. |
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Publishers press for justice in Nigeria shooting| GENEVA, Switzerland, October 10, 2002 -- The president of the International Publishers Association, Pere Vicens, called for justice in the shooting death of Victor Nwankwo, a long-time leader in African publishing. In an open letter addressed to Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo, Vicens called Nwankwo's death "an assassination" and "a violation of freedom of expression and the fundamental rights of the individual in a democratic society." Nwankwo was gunned down outside his home while departing to receive an award for his achievements in publishing. Authorities in Nigeria reportedly have made no attempt to investigate. |
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| ACADEMIC AUTHORING PEOPLE |
 | Lon Kurashige (history), University of Southern California, Alice Yang-Murray (history), University of California, Santa Cruz, and Thomas G. Paterson, (history), general editor, University of Connecticut, wrote Major Problems in Asian American History: Documents and Essays (Houghton Mifflin). |
 | Sam W. Haynes (history), University of Texas at Arlington, Cary D. Wintz (history), exas Southern University, and Thomas G. Paterson, (history), general editor, University of Connecticut, wrote Major Problems in Texas History (Houghton Mifflin). |
 | Eileen B. Leonard (women's studies), Vassar College, wrote Women, Technology, and the Myth of Progress (Prentice Hall). |
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U.S. Supreme Court frames Eldred issuesWASHINGTON, October 9, 2002 -- Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court peppered attorneys with questions and comments in the Eldred copyright duration case, indicating concern over how long copyright owners should be allowed to keep control of their intellectual property. In 1998, under pressure from publishers and other major media companies, Congress extended the period for owners to keep material out of the public domain -- and profit from selling rights to its use -- to as long as 120 years. Contrasting the extension to the original 14-year limit when the Republic was formed, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said: "I can find fault with what Congress did here, but does it violate the Constitution?" Arguing against the 1998 extension, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig said the citizens' First Amendment rights to free expression are unduly limited if they can be barred from using other people's work for the better part of a century or more. Justice Stephen Breyer noted the economic foundation of the whole U.S. intellectual property industry -- including Hollywood, books, broadcasting -- has been built on ever-longer control over they material they create or acquire. Overruling Congress could result in "chaos," said Breyer. Maybe so, said Justice John Paul Stevens, "But maybe Congress acted improperly." The Court is expected to decide the case by June at the latest.
What this means for authors: Undoing copyright extensions could create chaotic dislocations in the U.S. media industry. Book publishers, owned by media conglomerates, could not be unaffected as media companies go into fundamental restructuring. How authors would fare through all this cannot be predicted, but authors would be affected. Would the Court go so far as to upend the financial structure of the media industry? You need look no further Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, to see that the Court cares much less about institutional chaos than allegiance to constitutional principles as it sees them. |
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