> On Jun 6, 2015, at 3:24 PM, Richard Williamson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Note: I have an MBA, I am not a lawyer. I'm looking at this from the > business aspects, not the legal. They look similar, though :) This is just > a general discussion, I don't know anything specific about the situation. > > Probably you won't get an answer from Ray, because if it is under dispute, > there's probably lawyers involved. > > The thing about contracts before a certain era (ie, before people were > talking about electronic versions of books), those contracts probably didn't > have anything in them that dealt with the rights to an electronic version. > "Electronic versions" are never mentioned, because there was no such thing. > > Time passes, and now, o look, electronic versions are a thing. > > In this case, the contract Party A (the author) will argue that "it wasn't > mentioned, ergo you didn't buy those rights", while the contract Party B (the > publisher) will argue that "it wasn't specifically mentioned as a separate > right, ergo it is covered by the general rights we purchased". > > Now, consider a case where the rights have reverted, because a book didn't > sell, or it was specifically called out in the contract... then it isn't a > problem. The author can get a new contract with whomever, for both print and > electronic, or just electronic versions. > > In the case where a book has been in continual print for over 30 years, and > there are no time clauses, then the rights might not revert to the author. > This is/was the general behavior of contract clauses on rights, that the > rights revert after the book is no longer in print. > > Publishers are leery of just saying "ok, yeah, e-versions are yours", because > that could be used as precedent, and make it more difficult for them in any > other similar case. > > rip
I’m not being coy, just sort of tired of explaining it. rip is correct, it’s rights that pre-dated ebooks. Our contention is and always has and always will stem from one line that every one of my contracts has it it, what I think of as my “specificity clause.” It states, “All rights not expressly granted here within reside with Author.” Random House thinks otherwise. As we are a legacy from them buying Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, we and many other authors are trying to get this resolved without litigation. Best, R.E.F.
