* Judge Otis D. Wright II dismissed the plagiarism case against Stephenie Meyer for her book Breaking Dawn on Wednesday. Author Jordan Scott had accused Meyer of ripping her off for the fourth book in the Twilight series. The judge ruled that the novels are ““not substantially similar as a matter of law.”

* On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin rejected Amazon.com’s request to reconsider his preliminary approval of the revised Google Book Settlement. GalleyCat reports, “When asked about the settlement in June, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wondered why Google should ‘get a prize for violating a large series of copyrights’.”

* BookExpo America (BEA) will focus on Spain for its 2010 Global Market Forum. This is the second year that BEA will have the cultural program. Last year’s focus was “Books and Publishing in the Arab World.” BEA will take place at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City, May 25 – 27, 2010.

* Evie Wyld has won the 2009 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her debut novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice. “In a year in which the shortlist included the winner of the 2008 Booker prize, Aravind Adiga, and the 2007 Orange winner, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the 29-year-old Wyld expressed surprise and delight at having taken the £5,000 prize,” reported The Guardian. You can see the full shortlist on an earlier FiledBy blog post. Past winners include David Mitchell, Margaret Drabble and VS Naipaul.