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“After noting that most of Random House’s backlist titles grant the publisher electronic book rights [...], [CEO Markus Dohle] writes that ‘there have been some misunderstandings concerning ebook rights in older backlist titles.’ He then proceeds to argue that older contracts granting rights to publish “in book form” or “in all editions” grant electronic rights to Random House.”
Not so fast says The Authors Guild, who have reacted to Dohle’s two-page letter, which was sent to many literary agents on Friday, with a piece titled “Random House’s Retroactive Rights Grab.” Take away message?
“If you have an old book contract in which you haven’t granted e-book rights, patience is likely to pay off. The e-book industry is still young — there’s no need to jump in. And we strongly suspect e-royalty rates are at a low-water mark.”
December 16th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Great post! It reminded me about some amendment letters I’ve seen recently. I think the next thing we’ll see from the Author’s Guild will be commentary on Publisher changes to “out of print” language. The verdict in the Random House v. RosettaBooks case demonstrated that rights must be specifically granted according to format. I suspect new contracts will include “out of stock” language as a catch-all to include electronic books as well as any future formats not yet developed. My concern is that authors could potentially be forced into an ineffectual & agonizing limbo in which they make no real money off their work, but cannot request a reversion of rights because the books are still “in stock.” The debate (as so many do) will likely come down to an accounting issue. E-books are very cheap to store, so just how much will they have to net for them to be kept “in stock?”