Hollywood Employment Going Up

“The mid-year forecast, released Wednesday, estimated that regional entertainment employment will hit 155,300 jobs this year — 137,400 people in the motion picture and sound industries and 17,900 in television and radio. Those numbers are forecast to reach 170,400 in 2011, with 152,400 in motion picture/sound and 18,000 in broadcast.”

Agent Opens E-Book Imprint, Provokes Lit E-Rights Issue

“Andrew Wylie opened a new front, and a possible negotiating tool, in a debate over e-book rights for what are called backlist titles. Many traditional publishers have said they own the electronic rights to those books, but some authors and their estates have disagreed, arguing that since the books were published before e-books existed, the digital rights were not explicitly sold to the publishers.”

Kafka Papers Highlight Issue Of Heirless Jewish Cultural Assets

“The ownership of heirless pre-Holocaust European Jewish cultural assets – not to mention whether Kafka’s papers can first and foremost be placed in such a category – is a hugely controversial issue. The first box opened yesterday appears to contain a handwritten story by Kafka that has never been seen before, making the granting of public access even more significant than scholars must have expected.”