"He should be prosecuted for Fraud and Intellectual Property Theft under American, British, or International law - whichever is most expedient and severe."
January 28, 2012 5:32 AM   Subscribe

Founded in England in 1989, Creation Books has long existed as one of a small handful of independent publishers in the UK and US that specialize in releasing deliberately shocking and provocative literary and artistic material (of debatable quality). Recently the company has been publicly accused of fraud, breach of contract, and intellectual property theft by eight of its former authors, including the likes of: The British Film Institute's Head of Content Jane Giles, industrial music forbear and prankster Boyd Rice, Sid Vicious biographer and filmmaker Alan Parker, University of Central Arkansas writing professor Mark Spitzer, Another Man Magazine editor Ben Cobb, and Sydney-based transgressive novelist Matthew Stokoe (whose books are now published through Dennis Cooper's imprint Little House On The Bowery).

In a series of letters to the FBI (made public as .PDFs) the authors allege that not only have they not been paid royalties on their book sales, but also that the company's owner, James Williamson, has created fake email accounts of non-existent Creation Books employees, so as to give authors the runaround. One author claims to have been threatened with a libel suit for complaining about his poor treatment by the company, and another alleges that Williamson threatened to "rip his head off" when he demanded unpaid royalties. In response to the fraud allegations, the catalogue at www.CreationBooks.com has been rapidly downsized; and in an apparent move to quash further public criticism, Williamson now seems to be trying to have his own company's Wikipedia page deleted.
posted by slumberfiend (1 comment total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Hey, it looks like you are involved in bringing this action against Creation Books, which makes this post very much not-okay at all. -- taz



 
I had a few Creation titles back in the day ... James Havocs' 'Meathook Seed', one about the excesses of the Roman amphitheatre, and a Creation Books reader with samples from a selection of their authors. Some gloriously transgressive and demented stuff to be had - reminded me of the attitude of the real underground comic scene of the 60s and 70s in the US.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:44 AM on January 28, 2012


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