Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
My understanding is that most contracts didn't have explicit ebooks rights until fairly recently. Some publishers have asserted that the language in the contracts give them ebook rights, but I don't think it's something that has gone to court. I would suspect that an author with a good agent is probably better off in this regard than most. Also, my understanding is that most book contracts have rights reversion clauses which say that if the book goes out of print, then the rights revert back to the author. As with most matters of contract law, it comes down to the specific language in the contract.
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Random House sued Rosetta and ended up settling on Rosetta terms, more or less, to keep the case from being openly decided.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/p...k-lawsuit.html
More recently, Open Road and HC have been fighting over JULIE OF THE WOLVES and contract language gratuitously inserted by the idiot agent back in the 70's. The outcome of that one is that basically neither side has the rights to the ebook. HC claims exclusive rights but only if the author agrees and their terms were so bad the author refused. Now the author is dead so the countdown to PD finally started. The title might make it to ebooks circa 2080...
Publishing contracts are a minefield and since there is no certification for agents nor any requirement they know a darn thing about contract or IP law, the best recommendation for any author thinking of tradpub these days is to hire a good IP lawyer out of their own pocket to fisk both the agent and publisher contracts.
(Because as bad as the publisher horror stories get, the agent stories are worse.)