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EC v DA: it's over--for Dear Author and Jane Litte/Jen Frederick

Ellora’s Cave settled with Dear Author and Jane Litte, on the defamation suit the former brought against the latter.

The suit, you may remember, came about because Ellora’s Cave’s principals didn’t much like the fact that The Curious Case of Ellora’s Cave put together, cohesively and succinctly, the many bits of evidence, statements, and rumors, that have been hinting at deeply troubling going-ons at the company for the last decade or so.

I have thoughts on this, and go on and on about them here.

Good luck to all the many authors who are still owed royalties, and to those who only want to finally be free of their contracts with Ellora’s Cave.

EC v DA: I now direct your attention to...

Things have been quiet on this issue for months. Basically, litigation in the US moves at the speed of frozen molasses, and a lot of the minor stuff that does happen does not get filed, so this was not unexpected.

What was rather a surprise is to have Ann Jacobs, one of EC authors who’s stated that there are hinky goings on with the publisher, to file a motion to intervene in the EC v DA lawsuit, and a counterclaim to EC’s defamation suit. Please note that EC’s contract is part of this longer document. All sorts of interesting shit in there.

Courtney Milan is hosting both filings, and has posted a brief, yet pointed, update on the case, here.

Deirdre Saoirse Moen’s take is here.

Now I have a helluva lot of rather interesting stuff to read before I post anything more.

Finally, an update in the EC v DA vexatious defamation suit.

(Even though I’m not on twitter, I monitor #notchilled pretty regularly, because it’s the only way I have to get updates on the case, not having a PACER account or the like.)

Today, Courtney Milan posted a quick update/analysis of the latest happenings in the case.

Using a few more characters: judge John R Adams denied TiNut’s motion to quash the subpoena, in a rather snarky manner too.

I can’t copy and paste directly from the document, but the judge basically¹ says, “you claim that your identity should not be made available to the defendants, because you know nothing about the case; however, both in your letters and in your tweets, you have proved without a doubt that you know all parties involved, and all sorts of facts of the matter at hand, intimately. Your not-quite-a-motion to quash is hereby denied.”

The moral of the story: don’t brag about all you know and can prove, and above all, don’t offer to testify in favor of one of the parties, lest you discover the legal system is not that easy to manipulate.

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¹ I think, for an extrapolation, it’s pretty close.

Anyone else...

digging the irony of Ann Somerville using a post at Karen Scott’s blog to justify an absolute, un-nuanced defense of Jane Litte of Dear Author?

Ann Somerville quoting Karen Scott

For context: Jane Litte revealed on March 24th that she is also Jen Frederick, a NA author. You can follow some of the resulting asploding heads over here, and then here, and finally here.

At one point, AS posted a comment that could have gotten Jane Litte and company in trouble. Reading between the lines, they offered to edit the offending bits, but she preferred to have the whole thing deleted. Then AS decided to re-post it, with additional commentary, in her own blog. The commentary required linkage for the purposes of proof, hence the irony.

For those of you who don’t want to go there–or in case the blog disappears again–here’re the screenshots, with my own commentary. And, because I’m ornery like that, I’m not giving you the same links AS uses–I believe her narrative is just a wee bit biased, so I’m choosing different links to provide an alternative take on the background information.

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It was all quiet, then Anne Rice opened her mouth

Many of our readers are aware of Anne Rice’s increasingly strange behaviour, claiming that she doesn’t need an editor, that readers who write negative reviews hate her, sending her fanboys and girls to attack a blogger because she dared use pages of her book Pandora (after writing a fairly negative review of it) for a craft project, and over all being a huge drama queen with a large platform and little common sense.

Ms Rice, not content with the fact that her opinion is sought less and less often, is not shy about sharing it as loudly as she can.

Today I was made aware that while posting that she ‘knows nothing and has no opinion,’ in truth Anne Rice is chiding anyone speaking in support of DA or JL, and claiming that EC will have its day in court. Funny, I thought it was the people accused who had their day in court to prove their innocence. Further, I thought that in defamation cases, is the people doing the accusing who have to prove there is defamation.

Still, not surprised to see Anne Rice talking out of her ass again. It’s become her schtick, yes?

Charming? (aka, old business is current business) (EC v DA)

I was reading #notchilled when the always entertaining TiNut spewed erm…tweeted, this particular witticism:

TiNut - EC and company are charming as witnesses and clients
Oh yeah, I see how charming it is to have Tina Engler/Jaid Black giving the finger to everyone on her facebook page.

 (embiggen at your own risk)

FIRST result, people, top left!
Very professional, indeed. Befitting the owner of a *cough* massive *cough* company.

(Please do excuse me while I laugh myself silly over here in the corner for a moment)

Okay, I’m back.

So charming as clients and on the stand that the judge in the Brashear case spanked them every which way till Sunday, tears and all.

A taste, because I just can’t resist:

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Not a post: leaving breadcrumbs (EC v DA)

Courtney Milan has a brief blog post about the denial to remand the case back to state court. Go, take a peek.

(Comments off on this one, but feel free to comment in and to any of the previous real posts.)

I am loving this (aka, the law of unintended consequences)

Last week I realized that one of the blogs I visit regularly had an ad for Ellora’s Cave up in the front page.

Considering the fact that EC is suing a blogger, and that the blogging community rallied around her to the tune (so far) of almost $55,000, saying I was taken aback is to greatly understate the matter.

I seriously considered dropping the blog from my bookmarks, and was getting all ready to breathe fire and stuff, when I realized a few things:

  • One, there’s another blog–very well known and very vocal in its defense of Dear Author–sporting the very same ad for EC.
  • Second, it’s quite likely that both these blogs (and probably a fair number of other book blogs) signed contracts months ago for these ads to appear this month, well before EC committed the unmitigated stupidity of suing Dear Author.
  • Third, it’s also quite likely that at least some of the money these bloggers are making off these ads is going directly to help Dear Author and Jane Litte.

Don’t you love karma?

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Edited to add: well, it gets even better (though my timing? not so good, as I had this all scheduled and then saw what follows below)

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Ellora's Cave v Dear Author - how low can you fall (pretty low)

As I reported elsewhere, on Saturday out of the blue–and absolutely not connected to Ellora’s Cave, no siree, it says so right in the tag line–a sockpuppet was created.

From where I sit–hey, Tina, this opinion, savvy? ergo, protected speech–said account is a sockpuppet for Tina Engler/Jaid Black, created strictly to try to intimidate those EC authors and other contractors so they won’t help Jane Litte fight the vexatious defamation suit that Ellora’s Cave filled against her and Dear Author.

It’s not working–donations, which had slowed down a bit, saw an uptick as soon as the toxic egg started posting how the authors had sued Ellora’s Cave (have screenshots, will share). As I type, the amount raised for Jane Litte’s and Dear Author’s legal defense is $47,503. Not bad for a relatively small online community to raise in less than three full days, huh?

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Dear Author / EC suit update

Dear Author posted an status update regarding the lawsuit filled late last week by Ellora’s Cave: Jane Litte has retained the services of Marc Randazza, First Amendment Badass. You can visit Mr Randazza’s website to check out his credentials, or follow the previous link to see what Ken White of Popehat’s fame has to say about him.

I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one online, but I do have a feeling that this example of legal thuggery will be stomped in short order like a disgusting New York cockroach.

I also believe that this whole thing is a blatant attempt at intimidation of Ellora’s Cave authors, editors, cover artists, and any other contractors and employees who have not been paid–either at all or in full–so that they keep quiet about it.

Which is why I applaud all the different authors and bloggers who are actually doing their bit to stand up against EC, to speak out, and to spread the word about what is going on–both right now with the defamation lawsuit against Dear Author and Jane Litte, and generally within Ellora’s Cave.

Particular kudos to Courtney Milan, who is going a step further. Madam, you have stones.

 

Edited to add: I just learned that The Los Angeles Times has picked up the story.

The Streisand Effect in all its glory, baby!