Wednesday, August 31, 2005

And There Was Much Rejoicing

Seems the idiots at PublishAmerica, the most notorious of the vanity presses trying to masquerade as a valid alternative to traditional publishers, didn't understand that whole trademark thing. They're getting sued by Encyclopedia Britannica over the use of "PublishBritannica" as the name for their UK branch. For more info, scroll down on this page to see a very exhaustive web analysis of how PA tried to cover the gaff by doing a mad search-and-replace for "Britannica" with "Britannia" that didn't quite work. Also, be sure to pay attention to the nice diatribe against PA's reputation and status as a publisher that EB includes in their filing.

While I'm happy to see a valid suit with a good chance of sticking go up against PA, I can't help but wonder what's going to happen to authors who are already trying to fight against their PA contracts. This may not help them.

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