Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
*sigh*
The primary issue here is contractual. Namely, the publishers have contracts WITH AUTHORS that restrict where the book can be sold.
If a publisher hauls off and internationally distributes a book without the permission of the author, it's a violation of the contract. Authors, in turn, may not want to fork over international rights to a single publisher, who may not be willing or able to put a lot of work into promoting the book abroad; or the author may want to use "international rights" as a negotiating tool to get a better royalty rate and/or advance.
This problem almost certainly will get resolved, but unless you support wide-spread trampling of author's rights and violations of contracts, it will not happen overnight.
Good to see that y'all support an author's rights and contracts only so long as it doesn't inconvenience you.  |
Well, I guess we'll see how well author's rights are being protected when either one of two things happen : 1. readers switch off from buying and start freeloading (i.e. what happened when the music industry disrespected their fan base for too long) 2. the publishers find themselves locked into one dominant distributor (i.e. Amazon) with little capability of negotiating decent distribution deals.
I support an author's rights... but I support my consumer rights and I expect distributors to sort out
their problems with authors instead of just schlepping the problem off on me.