Publishers File Opposition Brief in Case Against Internet Archive for Blatant Scanning and Distribution of Literary Works on Industrial Scale

With all major categories posting huge gains, unit sales of print books jumped 22.7% for the week ended Jan. 16, 2021, over the comparable week in 2020, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. The biggest gains came in the YA categories, with fiction up 47.6% and nonfiction rising 46.9%. The release of Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas, which sold nearly 18,000 copies, helped to lift YA fiction. In YA nonfiction, Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi was the top title, selling more than 4,100 copies. Juvenile fiction sales rose 30.7% over the week ended Jan. 18, 2020, led by Little Blue Truck’s Valentine by Alice Schertle, which sold just over 28,000 copies, and Dav Pilkey’s Cat Kid Comic Club, which sold nearly 22,000 copies. Juvenile nonfiction sales rose 28.8% over 2020. Two educational titles led the way: Crystal Radke’s My First Learn-to-Write Workbook sold more than 7,000 copies, and Big Preschool Workbook sold 6,400 copies. Adult fiction unit sales rose almost 30% over 2020.

Key Fourth Quarter Highlights • The Company added approximately 300,000 net digital-only subscribers compared with the end of the third quarter of 2023, fueled by bundle and multi-product subscriber additions • Total digital-only average revenue per user (“ARPU”) grew 3.5 percent year-over-year to $9.24 primarily as a result subscribers graduating from promotional to higher prices and price increases on tenured non-bundled subscribers • Higher digital subscribers and ARPU drove year-over-year growth in subscription revenues from digital products of 7.2 percent • Digital advertising revenues decreased 3.7 percent year-over-year largely as a result of the five fewer days in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to 2022 as well as declines in revenue from our podcasts and creative services • Operating costs decreased 4.8 percent year-over-year and adjusted operating costs (defined below) decreased 0.7 percent, largely as a result of lower cost of revenue, partially offset by higher salesand marketing and product development costs • Operating profit of $129.0 million, a 38.7 percent increase year-over-year, with adjusted operating profit (defined below) of $154.0 million, an 8.5 percent increase year-over-year primarily as a result of higher digital subscription and other revenues as well as lower adjusted operating costs, partially offset by lower advertising revenues

The Association of American Publishers today filed reply comments in the U.S. Copyright Office inquiry into the intersection of copyright law and artificial intelligence (AI) in response to flawed and inaccurate assertions submitted by some tech companies and/or their investors in the first comment round including tired assertions that the rights of authors and publishers are an obstacle to innovation. AAP filed a lengthy submission that includes a multitude of points, including: *Big tech petitions the government “for cover from liability for their calculated disregard of authorship, also ignoring that rights holders today already routinely license their works for all kinds of digital uses.” *“Rather than working with copyright owners, these companies seek to appropriate literature and other invaluable intellectual property for their own commercial gain, and to bend the law to their will."