Although this article is a bit old its still relevant about the struggle for the authors to keep the rights to their backlist where the original contract said nothing about the publishers getting the right to the e-book:
http://www.doctorsyntax.net/2009/12/...lly-begun.html
Quote:
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But the timing kerfuffle was minor compared to the dustup that broke out on Friday when Random House CEO Markus Dohle declared, with chutzpah one can only admire, that the house controls e-book rights for thousands of backlist titles whose contracts made no mention of such rights. This was drawing a line far out in the sand. Dohle’s bold assertion is, essentially, that e-books are just another kind of “book,” so the contractual language that gives Random exclusivity over all editions of a work includes e-books—even though they had not been invented at the time most of these contracts were signed.
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Another interesting take on the whole subject:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prosp...ng_deal_amazon
Quote:
So Mr Wylie’s announcement last week of a deal with Amazon to publish electronic versions of books by several of his authors has understandably been viewed by the traditional publishers that he will bypass as a declaration of war.
Mr Wylie is starting by publishing electronic versions of some classics, such as Mr Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint” and Updike’s “Rabbit” novels. Some publishers argue that they own the electronic rights to such classics, under contracts signed before anyone thought there would be electronic books—an ownership claim that authors and their agents vigorously dispute.
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