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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
Re-read the complaint.
"Paragraph 20 of the agreement further makes clear that the scope of HarperCollins publishing rights extends to exploitation of the work 'through computer, computer-stored, mechanical or other electronic means now known or hereafter invented.' "
It is an additional stipulation (in the same paragraph) that HC needs the author's permission prior to releasing an electronic version.
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No, it's not.
Paragraph 1 contains the main grant of rights, as stated on page 8 of the complaint:
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the Agreement (in paragraph 1) grants to HarperCollins, for the term of copyright, the exclusive English-language rights in the United States, its territories and possessions, and Canada to publish Julie of the Wolves "in book form." This grant is itself encompassing of the right to publish the Work as an e-book.
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It's paragraph 20 that mentions computers and electronics means, and that's in relation to the rights Harper Collins has to sublicense the work, and explicitly excludes those rights:
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The stated limitation of paragraph 20 — that HarperCollins must seek George's consent to license rights in the Work enumerated in that paragraph
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Harper Collins is trying to argue that by specifically excluding the right to sublicense the work "through computer, computer-stored, mechanical or other electronic means now known or hereafter invented", the contract therefore gives them the right to publish (not sub-license) in ebook form.
Since the contract explicitly excluded the right to sublicense some formats, in my opinion, Harper Collins can't then argue that right to publish in those formats is implicitly granted in the first paragraph with the phrase "in book form".
Clearly (IMO) the intent of the contract was to grant Harper Collins limited rights to publish in existing (as of the contract date) book forms, and not to grant the right to publish in any future forms.
Essentially, as I read things, the contract looked like this:
1. I grant HC the right to do A
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20. HC may not sublicense rights B, C, D, E or anything that might be invented in the future.
And now HC are arguing that para 1 implicitly includes the rights to directly exploit all the things that they were forbidden to sublicense in para 20, because they were not explicitly excluded from A.
I don't this argument will work.