Quote:
Originally Posted by wallcraft
This would never happen at a major publisher today, because they get all the rights for new works (perhaps limited to some countries, but not otherwise limited). However, for older works the publisher got exactly what they contracted for and have had decades to extract revenue from the work. They have also been sitting on their hands about ebooks. If Random House had produced an ebook version ten years ago I doubt William Styron would have objected. Now they winge that they put in all that work 40 years ago and even though they were well compensated they want more.
See Authors Guild to Random House head: What's in the water over there? |
Not quite true. The publisher gets the rights specified in the contract with the author. SOMETIMES this is all rights, but not normally.