Books published within the last 15 years have clearly defined e-book publishing rights, but for the billions of titles published before this, the rules are not so clear cut. The battle being waged now between book authors and publishers is over who owns the digital rights, and more importantly, who gets the lion share of the revenue generated from the sales.
It is in the best interest of authors to self publish e-books themselves since the cost of doing so is relatively small, and they wouldn’t need to share the revenue with the publisher as an added bonus. A 2002 ruling by a Manhattan judge ruled in favor of authors claiming that “e-books are separate from books”.
We can reasonably expect this to be a decision which will be appealed all the way to the top court, but until then the debate rages on. Are e-books separate from their dead tree brethren? If this turns out to be true, and the future is recorded in e-ink, it doesn’t bode well for the publishers. What do you think?
Comments are closed on this article
Quakindude
December 13, 2009 at 9:01pm
IMO, it doesn't friggin matter what medium the words are shown/printed/displayed in, it's still the intellectual property of the author who spent many, many weeks and months in front of a word processor typing out all of his or her thoughts. It's the author who spent many days stuck and frustrated trying to piece together his or her thoughts into a coherant, researched for accuracy, entertaining string of words for us to enjoy. If you aren't retained by the author or the author yourself, it doesn't friggin matter if it's written in digits, on paper, airplane smoke, water or aligned stars in the universe. The AUTHOR is the only one who owns the work he or she labored so hard to create.
To say or think otherwise is purely selfish, idiotic and greedy. Just because you have your child in someone's house, it doesn't make the owner of that house the parent.
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***The views I express are my own and do not represent the views of MaximumPC Magazine or Future US.***
lostcause64
December 13, 2009 at 7:14pm
It seems to me that publishers are about to be in the same boat as the record labels due to technology making those old ways of doing business obsolete. I love the idea of an auther or artist being able to put their work out there for the world without interference from some self-important suit dictating the how's and whys.
John
Have you ever wondered why intelligence can normally be found in an individual, but runs screaming in terror from a group? Though, there are exceptions...
JohnP
December 13, 2009 at 10:24pm
I doubt the authors of a published book makes more than a fraction of what the publisher and bookstore gets. Like music, the only real benefit was for promotion (Sara Palin anyone?). I could very well see a website that just sells e-books withour DRM and in a non-propietary format. It is inevitable. Would the authors get more money from this scheme? I hope so.
nekollx
December 14, 2009 at 11:03am
I'm a author myself, self publishing though Lulu which does print on demad not bulk printing. Before i even decide a cover rate printing "overhead" is $15 a book.I can only imagine the overhead when the books are preprinted and the publisher is "banking" on your title. At least i can set mycover price
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