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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
Gottlieb saying "I've seen the Open Road agreement" doesn't prove anything in either direction.
Either Open Road did its due diligence and has a valid defense; or didn't and acted in a high-handed fashion.
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Eh, the Gottlieb statement was just provided as an illustrative example of someone in the actual profession having some experience in dealing with both Open Road and Harper providing relevant-ish information.
For better context, here's the
full text of the actual complaint (either Flash online read or site registration for download required), which openly states in 20. that the contract was for "exclusive English-language rights in the United States, its territories and possessions, and Canada to publish Julie of the Wolves in 'book form'".
So it looks like Open Road would indeed have a valid defense for distribution through the rest of the world, even if they tripped up on the US/Canada part of the deal.
And the complaint states that her literary agent contacted HC about Open Media's offer to the author in order to inquire about the e-book situation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
Contracts these days are pretty extensive, and it's up to the author, the author's agent and the author's lawyer(s) to watch their backs. Seriously, there is nothing new about this, and anyone who is going to consider the implications of a contract from a news article rather than from a lawyer needs to hire a better lawyer.
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No argument there. Even I can tell this looks like a rather bad contract to have signed, which apparently gives almost everything in every possible book-distributing medium that might ever be invented over to HC for the full term of the copyright, which it seems they own and control instead of the author (??). Which basically seems to work out to locked-in exclusivity in perpetuity (in the US, territories, and Canada, at least) with no possibility of renegotiation.
Hopefully publicity about this will result in more aspiring authors hiring real lawyers who know what they're doing in this particular field instead of thinking they can get by with their sister-in-law's third cousin who'll do it for a discount, or that they can act as their own lawyers when reading the contract.