Class action: publishers paid writers "sale" royalties on ebooks whose fine-print says they're "licensed"
Simon and Shuster are being sued for paying authors 12% to 20% for the "sale" of ebooks, and then "licensing" the ebooks to end users. Authors are supposed to get 50% when their books are licensed.
Interestingly the suit is based on Eminem's lawsuit against Universal.
Quote:
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In 2012, Eminem and Universal settled a lawsuit over this very issue, with Universal agreeing to pay Eminem the licensing rate on the digital music sales it made to customers who also got a "license agreement" with their purchase.
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It will be interesting to see whether publishers choose to pay authors more, or to actually sell rather than license ebooks.