Naughty Nights Press (NNP) failed to appear at this morning's hearing. The Court entered a default judgment awarding all rights to The Mercies of Cinderella and The Naughty Ladies of Cotton Glen to the Author on the basis of fraud in inducement in procuring the Author Agreements for those works. Additionally, the Court found that NNP tortiously interfered with Author's attempts to publish the works on Amazon. The Court also awarded Author $24,996.00 in damages plus expenses.
NNP sent Author "Author Agreements" that it knew it could not fulfill.
Section 3.2 of both Author Agreements provides:
3.2 The Publisher shall have the
entire control of all aspects of the production, publication, pricing and commercial exploitation of the Work
including all marketing and distribution
of the Work and derivatives of the Work via the Site or through any other means
at its absolute discretion. The Author shall have the right to select the
format for the Work from a choice
of templates to be provided by the Publisher.
NNP never had any “templates” as the term was used in Section
3.2 of the Author Agreements. NNP went ahead and published both works without allowing Author to select the format for the works.
When Author attempted to publish the works on Amazon, NNP sent a DMCA notice to Amazon claiming rights to the works. NNP knew at that time that it had no claims. It had even sent Author an email acknowledging that it had no rights to The Mercies of Cinderella.
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