Quote:
Originally Posted by edercito
I hadn't given much thought to this scenario before, but if a work that was produced in paper by X publisher and then the rights to publish an ebook are given to Y publisher, this instance does not sound entirely "alright" to me given the contributions from X to the original print version.
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This would never happen at a major publisher today, because they get all the rights for new works (perhaps limited to some countries, but not otherwise limited). However, for older works the publisher got exactly what they contracted for and have had decades to extract revenue from the work. They have also been sitting on their hands about ebooks. If Random House had produced an ebook version ten years ago I doubt William Styron would have objected. Now they winge that they put in all that work 40 years ago and even though they were well compensated they want more.
See
Authors Guild to Random House head: What's in the water over there?