Shining a small, bright light in a wilderness of writing scams
In the early days of Writer Beware–back in the pre-digital era–scammers waited for writers to come to them. Sure, they advertised (Writer’s Digest used to have a Classified section that was full of scam ads; one notorious scam agency placed ads in their local Pennysaver). They had websites. And thanks to often lax oversight, they Read More The post Guest Post: A Narrow Escape From an Impersonation…
For the second time in four years, the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) has updated its Canon of Ethics. The last time, in 2022, the major changes related to packaging and producer fees for clients’ TV and film deals (with members prohibited from participating), and to the growing practice of agents doubling as paid Read More The post The AALA Makes Significant Updates to Its Canon…
On Tuesday, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted final approval to the historic class action settlement in the Bartz v Anthropic copyright infringement lawsuit. At $1.5 billion, it’s the largest recovery ever in a copyright infringement suit, penalizing Anthropic for downloading, storing, and copying pirated datasets consisting of millions of illegally uploaded books in order to use Read More The…
We’re currently waiting for Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin to issue final approval of the historic settlement in the Bartz v, Anthropic copyright infringement lawsuit. (If you need a refresher, my past blog posts include a general overview of the settlement and an April update.) One of the interesting outcomes–so far–has been that while participation by class Read More The post Anthropic Settlement…
I doubt that there will be anyone reading this article who hasn’t been targeted by a writing scam. That’s how prevalent and aggressive they are these days. Fraudsters who prey on writers employ a variety of methods to recruit clients: advertising (especially on Facebook, which is awash in ads for scam publishing service providers), sponsored Read More The post The First Clue to an Email Scam May…
In December 2024, the FBI arrested the CEO, VP, and an associate of PageTurner Press and Media, one of the most prolific and predatory of the many Philippine publishing scams. The government determined that over the course of six years, PageTurner–which did business in the Philippines under the name Innocentrix–defrauded nearly 900 writers of more Read More The post Guest Blog Post: Can a Flawed…