Last fall, we told you about a lawsuit filed against Thomas Friedman and FSG by Ed Miracle, the artist who claimed the original dust jacket for Friedman’s The World Is Flat used his painting of Columbus’s ships falling off the edge of the earth without permission. Well, it turns out that Miracle was ticked off by a lot more people, as the full list of defendants included “Holtzbrinck Publishers Holdings,LLC, Audio Renaissance, Sound Library, St Martin’s Press, Picador, Thomas L. Friedman, Dean Nicastro, Amazon.com, Inc., Royce Carlton,LLC., Barnes & Noble,Inc., Borders Group,Inc., Paradise Cay,Inc., Latitudes & Attitudes (FTW Publishing), Yale University, and Bookspan.” I say included because we just got an email from Miracle’s agent informing us “the litigation has been amicably resolved and the terms of the resolution are confidential.”
I know, I know, you’re thinking, “I recognize most of those other names, but Dean Nicastro?” He’s the one who designed the cover with that image the first time; you’ve also seen his work on other FSF books like Milton Hatoum’s The Brothers, David Bezmozgis’s Natasha, and Albert Sánchez Piñol’s Cold Skin. “And Royce Carlton?” That’s an agency that books Friedman’s speeches; I guess they must have used the original cover art on their website or something. Anyway, I bet FSG is glad they got that out of the way before reissuing the hardcover with a bunch of new content in a few weeks…