Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
An author can't grant e-book rights to company B if she's already signed them away to company A.
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But it appears that HC may not actually have the rights to release an actual e-book, only to block someone else's release of one, since HC themselves would need the author's consent to license the e-version. And it is a 1971 agreement, back when computers were like, huge IBM mainframes or whatever if they weren't still vacuum tube punchcard things.
Quote:
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The complaint also looks to explain what it calls the “stated limitation of paragraph 20” of its contract — that HarperCollins must seek George's consent to license rights in the Work enumerated in that paragraph — by explaining that the clause “does not grant George or any third party the right to publish the Work as an e-book, a right that instead belongs exclusively to HarperCollins.”
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Given that none of us know what the contract actually says, to go further than this is pointless speculation.
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Here's some
linkage to the Publisher's Weekly article which quotes from the suit, which in turn quotes from the contract (this was originally linked in the text of the OP article, but seems to have gotten edited out when they updated the story?).
Speculate* away! For great justice!
* But more pointedly on the shortcomings of HC, who are handling this in a rather high-handed manner which seems to be a band-wagon jump as it looks like they're now claiming they were planning an e-book release all along (book was just released in October this year), which seems like the sort of thing the author or her lawyers would have checked before they said yes to Open Road's offer to digitize.
This is probably all going to end up on Writer Beware as a cautionary example of predatory publisher practices when drawing up and interpreting decades-old contracts.