So Sue Me, Round Two
Library Journal’s Academic Newswire updates the Alms for Jihad debacle addressed here earlier.
The authors of the book Alms for Jihad, pulled from the market by publisher Cambridge University Press (CUP) in the face of a controversial libel suit in a British Court, said this week they are in the process of regaining their publishing rights and will seek to republish the book with a U.S. publisher. University of California Santa Barbara Professor Robert O. Collins, a co-author, told the LJ Academic Newswire he is currently negotiating with CUP for a rights reversion and has been assured that “there will be no problem, just several weeks to draft proper legal papers.” Collins also said the authors have had several offers from U.S. publishers, but will make no firm plans until they officially secure their publishing rights.
Meanwhile ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom urges libraries to resist efforts to remove the book from the shelves. Ironically, some libraries are moving them to special collections, since the book has become instantly rare.
Posted by Barbara Fister on August 22nd, 2007 under Books, Information Ethics, Scholarly Communications.
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Pingback from Take Two
Time: October 11, 2007, 11:09 pm
[...] Today’s New York Times has an opinion piece about the use of UK’s plaintiff-friendly libel laws to suppress publication of books in the United States. The authors, professors of law and of Jewish Studies at Emory, call attention to the way Cambridge caved when a billionaire Saudi banker objected to passages in Alms for Jihad and call for legislation that will prevent US courts from enforcing libel judgments issued by foreign courts – what they call “libel tourism.” We raised this issue a couple of times here. [...]
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