Coral Wire — Thu, Oct 22 2026

The Coral Index closed at 52/100 — Mixed signals. 22 graded stories fed that reading.

• Catapult group sold, all operations end October 30Market · Breaking — The Catapult Union says the sale covers the company's assets only, and continued employment with the buyer is not on the table.
• Society of Authors drops its own AI charter in a weekAI · Breaking — CEO Anna Ganley first defended the charter publicly before the organization pulled it to gather member feedback via survey
• 300 authors skip class action, sue Meta solo over AI trainingLegal — Each is seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringing work, with nearly 1,000 more authors planning to follow
• Anthropic settlement portal lags behind submitted changesLegal — Class counsel confirms the portal's confirmation email is not the same as the record actually updating
• Publishers tell AI inquiry opt-ins are workingLegal — Industry representatives and authors are both arguing against copyright changes at the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
• Judge orders Meta to name executives behind book piracyLegal — Judge Hixson's order covers both the shadow-library downloads and the BitTorrent seeding that distributed copyrighted books to strangers online
• Judge presses Anthropic and music publishers on fair useLegal — Claude fielded nearly 120,000 requests for AI-generated lyrics in six months, publishers told the court
• BA says selling Rooney books unlikely to break the lawLegal — Readers are buying anyway, with sales up nearly 300% in a week as authors including Zadie Smith and Arundhati Roy signed letters backing Rooney.
• Authors pull Palestinian history book from Random House over editsPlatform — Rights reverted after termination papers were signed in September, and the book resurfaces in 2027 at indie press Interlink
• Canadian publishers sue Anthropic as Google signs Reach and CNNLegal — Two different tracks are moving at once this week: one lawsuit, two new licensing partners
• Publishers push for safeguards on suspicious AI book buysMarket — Korean publishers are flagging a pattern of book-buying they suspect is tied to AI, and asking for protection against it

October 2026 archive · All editions