PublishAmerica Faces Lawsuit

Publishers Weekly reported on Tuesday that controversial company PublishAmerica is facing a new lawsuit. As reporter Steven Zeitchik wrote, “though this time it has upset someone with a lot more clout–and lawyers–than unknown authors.” The Maryland-based publisher launched a new business division in the United Kingdom called PublishBritannica which incurred the wrath of Encyclopaedia Britannica. The encyclopedia company’s suit alleged the use of the name could lead to confusion amongst consumers. The encylcopedia company wants the publisher to stop all usage as well as pay damages and and forfeit profits that resulted from the use of the name.

Publishers Weekly pointed out in their article that “A quick trip to the Web site PublishBritannica.com show a quirk–all references to the imprint are now made as PublishBritannia. The complaint refers to all of them as PublishBritannica, avec ‘C,’ leaving open the possibility that the company has changed the name–but not the URL–in response to the suit.”