Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
[...] and bottom line, they absolutely ARE SAYING that they retain the print rights, period. [...]
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Hitch, I agree with the sentiments of your post except the small bit I've quoted.
The sentence is:
In the event that we decide to further burden ourselves with the production of literary brilliance and expand to print, we will then retain First Time Print rights for all published works.
Note in particular the "then retain". The only sense of "retain" that fits this use is "to engage" (rather than "to hold"). Like saying: "in the event that a pipe bursts, we will then retain a plumber".
Of course their specific use of the word "retain" in this context leaves enough ambiguity that they may indeed be trying and pull a swift one so they can, in the future, say "look, we've said we retained that right", but I don't think any sensible reading of the sentence allows that interpretation. You are either holding something now that you can retain, or you are going to (try to) engage something in the future.
I still don't like it, the sentence shouldn't be there at all.