Costco Wholesale Corporation Reports November Sales Results

Search engines are once again under fire from some of the top news publishers. The New York Times, News Corp, and IAC are among the companies that are discussing the formation of a coalition to address how generative artificial intelligence (GAI) will impact advertising, websites, search, content, and more. Other publishing giants involved include Vox Media, Advance, and Axel Springer, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. And while a coalition might not be formed, the challenge is on the mind of publishing executives and company lawyers attempting to secure copyrights and intellectual property rights for content.

As the U.S. Supreme Court evaluates whether online retailers should collect sales taxes, industry groups continue to urge the court to overturn the tax break adopted in the pre-Internet era. On Tuesday, the court heard oral arguments on a 2016 South Dakota law that requires online merchants with more than $100,000 in sales to state residents, or 200 transactions with state residents, to collect sales tax. The law was struck down last year by South Dakota’s highest court, which cited the Supreme Court’s 1992 Quill Corp. v. North Dakota decision. In that case, the justices said online sellers can only be required to collect sales tax in states where they have a physical presence such as a store, office or warehouse. Part of their reasoning was that there were more than 6,000 state and local sales tax jurisdictions across the country and that the regulations were too complex for a seller to know how much to collect unless they were doing business locally. Click Read More below for additional information.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released its StatShot report for August 2020 reflecting reported revenue for all tracked categories, including Trade (consumer publications), K-12 Instructional Materials, Higher Education Course Materials, Professional Publishing, and University Presses. Total revenues across all categories for August 2020 were essentially flat at $1.9 billion, an increase of 0.3% as compared to August 2019. Year-to-date sales were $9.4 billion, a decline of 4.6% as compared to the same period last year. Trade (Consumer Books) sales were notably up 6.9% year-over-year, coming in at $703.6 million. Year-to-date (January-August 2020) Trade sales were $5.0 billion, an increase of 5.2%, as compared to the first eight months of 2019.