Fifty Shades of Grey

Last November, Universal Studios had a trademark infringement lawsuit against Smash. Smash had produced the Fifty Shades of Grey: A XXX Adaptation of which had caused a lot of problems for Universal studios. The said film would cause problems with the actual film adaptation of Fifty Shades. Universal's legal claim stated:

Plaintiffs ask this Court to enjoin the marketing, sale, and distribution of Defendants' infringing adaptation of the Fifty Shades Trilogy, a quickly and cheaply produced pornographic work that is likely to cause Plaintiffs irreparable harm by poisoning public perception of the Fifty Shades Trilogy and the forthcoming Universal films.

Defendants' crude pornographic portrayal of the erotic elements central to the Fifty Shades trilogy fails to capture the unique and delicate balance of provocative sex, emotional romance, and self-deprecating humor that has resulted in a worldwide literary phenomenon. For consumers who view the 'XXX Adaptation' in lieu of reading the books or watching the 'Fifty Shades' films, or for those who simply learn of the 'Fifty Shades' trilogy's existence in a hardcore porn format, the reputational damage to these already-controversial erotic novels and films is immeasurable and irreparable.

With the bidding war continuing, the legal finances are said to border on $3 million and more. Fans of the books better not give more value to Smash's' crude film adaptation and wait for Universal Studios to make sense out of the book.

Two days after Cinquante nuances de Grey, the French translation of Fifty Shades Of Grey, was released, the erotic novel has become the fastest selling book in the country's publishing history.

The astonishing sales figures - of around 75,000 every day - come after the book was panned by French critics as crass pseudo-porn that reads like a Mills and Boon novel. One high-brow reviewer wrote: It's as close to literature as Whiskas cat food is to gastronomy.

A spokesman for FNAC, which accounts for around a fifth of all book sales in France, said:

It is amazingly popular. We have never stocked a book that has sold so fast.

We sold 15,000 copies on the day it was released. In some shops there were just none left.

Shades of Grey fans in New Zealand will continue to have unrestricted access to the controversial trilogy following a decision by the chief censor.

The Chief Censor Office of Film and Literature classification has ruled to keep the sale of the book available without an age restriction.

Random House New Zealand managing director Karen Ferns said the decision was a victory for common sense and freedom of expression:

To have restricted publication would have put New Zealand out of step with comparable democratic countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada and the United States.

Books with similar levels of explicit sexual content have been available for years.

The book was given an M certificate which is an advisory 16 rating.

Fans of a best-selling erotic novel face a premature end to their reading pleasure because the second and third instalments of the trilogy have been withdrawn from the UAE bookshops.

Employees at some of the country's biggest bookstores say all three books of the Fifty Shades trilogy, by the British author EL James, were available until about a month ago, when there was a sudden withdrawal of the final two books in the series - Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

However, the first book in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey , remains on sale.

A saleswoman at Magrudy's in Abu Dhabi's Al Wadha Mall said they were still waiting for books two and three. They're banned. We don't know when we will get them, she said.

At Book World by Kinokuniya, in Dubai Mall, a saleswoman said the store was not allowed to sell the final instalments.

Virgin Megastore, which has a large display of the first book in Abu Dhabi Mall, said the second and third books have not been granted approval in the UAE at the moment . Iain Paul Martin, Virgin's regional senior books buyer, said all the store's books required an approval certificate from the department of media content at the NMC. In this case, books 2 and 3 of the Grey trilogy have not been granted the certificate, he said.

But strangely the National Media Council (NMC), the government authority overseeing censorship, has rigorously denied imposing any such ban, claiming that stores deciding not to sell the book have decided to do so of their own accord. Ibrahim Al Abed, the director general of the NMC, said the council had nothing to do with these things . We do not censor books. It's up to the bookshops who can decide to ban the books, he said.

Such is the power of the media hype Fifty Shades of Grey has become an overnight hit with young women and even teenagers who are reading it quite openly with none of the embarrassment which would normally have accompanied such a book before, even including most of the Australian women's swimming team after discovering it in a service station on their way to the Games from Manchester, presumably alongside other novels and within sight of children.

It is not just EL James and her own perverse imagination which are subverting public morals so dramatically; it is the whole of the communications industry which is driving e marketing to an audience who have become gradually desensitised over time by films and TV programmes targeted often specifically at the 16-34 age group, and which increasingly feature sexually explicit material and bondage.

Sexually provocative music lyrics and videos by Madonna, Lady Gaga and Rihanna's S&M are popular with teens and children. Retailers of bondage gear are also making a killing it seems with reports that the book has led to a surge in the sale of whips, handcuffs and other instruments of torture.

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Literature lovers around the world have released a collective gasp, or perhaps a groan, at the news that the publishing phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey has become the bestselling book in British history.

The erotic novel has sold in excess of 5.3m copies in print and ebook, more than The Highway Code , Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, or Harry Potter

In a statement author EL James said:

My main ambition when I signed the deal with Random House was to see my books in the shops. I simply had no idea they would be so successful and this is totally unexpected. The whole process has been both extraordinary and rewarding. I couldn't be more pleased with the sales and would like to thank everyone involved.

The feminist writer and 'academic' Marina Warner believes the unexpectedly wide appeal of this explicit fiction could be a sign of how difficult people now find it to feel aroused in an era when sex and nudity have become so commonplace:

There has been a general unveiling of the body in our culture and there is a connection between prohibition and arousal. It is in some way linked to our feelings about the sacred and the profane.

I definitely don't want to go back to censorship,... BUT. ..I don't think the answer is to reach for extremes either.

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The runaway success of Fifty Shades of Grey , the graphically sexual novel that has sold more than a million copies, has led to a boom in sex toys and erotic literature.

Ann Summers is just one of the stores reporting that sales of blindfolds, whips and handcuffs have soared, reflecting the strong sadism and masochism theme running through the book. Sales of jiggle balls, for example, have risen by 200%.

Fiona Davis, a director of Ann Summers, said the consumer effect of the book was similar to that of Sex and the City , which popularised designer shoes and vibrators.

She said that the book has sold out in many stores and that sales of other erotic literature have risen by 130%.

At Simply Pleasure, one of the Soho's most well-known erotic bookshops, employees said that the curiosity generated by the book was introducing a new generation of women to sex shops and sex toys. People realise that it's not seedy and sordid, which has always been the problem for the sex shop industry, said store manager Jane.

EL James' erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey , dubbed mummy porn by the British media, has become the country's fastest paperback to reach one million sales, trade figures showed.

The story took just 11 weeks to reach the milestone, 25 weeks faster than the previous record holder, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, according to figures from publishing tracking company Nielsen BookScan.

The book also holds the record sales for one week of 397,889 copies.

Both other titles in the trilogy are also selling well. In one week alone, the total of copies sold across the trilogy was around 856,000 copies.

According to Random House publishers, global sales for the series is in excess of 20 million, with North American sales of more than 15 million.