GBS: Authors Appeal to Their Fellows in Congress


Three leading anti-settlement writers groups—the NWU, the ASJA, and the SFWA—have written a letter to those members of Congress who’re also authors. The conclusion:

As fellow authors, you know the freedom to negotiate your own book contract is basic and precious. We hope you will join us in speaking in opposition to the amended settlement. The Department of Justice detailed fundamental flaws to the Court in September. A preponderance of those flaws remain.

I’m so used to seeing “preponderance of the evidence” used as a standard of proof that this last phrase struck me as odd. Putting it that way suggests, to my ear at least, that eliminating a “preponderance” of the flaws would suffice, no matter how serious the ones that remain are in absolute terms.