E-books: A Legal Tangle

[I. J. Parker]

Based on a letter I received from a fan in Australia, it appears that electronic versions that were sold along with print rights for the U.S. only (we retained foreign rights) cannot be purchased overseas.  In other words, readers in the UK, in Canada, or in Australia will not be able to read these books on Kindle.  Worse, it may not be possible for the author to publish the novel separately with Kindle (or anyone else, one assumes), because the new upload will involve a ms. owned by the US publisher.

 

Any legal insights into this conundrum???

 

Under the circumstances, we will all need to take a new hard look at our contracts to make sure we're covered for such eventualities.  Or perhaps, authors need to hold onto e-rights. 

[Grant McKenzie]

Ingrid, if the U.S. publisher only owns electronic rights for the U.S., then the author should be able to publish the ebook in other countries where Amazon has its own store - Amazon UK and Amazon Canada, for example. However, it is doubtful one can publish it on Amazon.com, since that is the U.S. arm and could prove to be a conflict. My thriller, Switch, for example is published by Random House on Amazon UK and Amazon.com, but not Amazon Canada as Penguin bought the Canadian rights. In Canada, Penguin chose to publish the ebook version on the Kobo platform owned by Chapters (Canadian-owned competitor to Amazon). Hope that helps.

[I. J. Parker]

Thanks, Grant. I'm not sure about that. The books are available for Kindle on Amazon.com, but foreigners can't buy there (or what?), and they aren't on other Amazons. The problem is that the edited ms. is the property of Penguin. Can I use this same ms. to upload to Amazon Kindle in UK, CA, and AU?

It's a bit weird, because you can buy books from overseas Amazons. It just costs more and adds more postage. But with e-books, those charges should not exist.

I think this situation will affect a lot of books.

[Grant McKenzie]

Yes. Penguin owns the U.S. English rights to the ms - not the actual ms. As the owner of the other rights, you can upload it to the other countries but specify that it can't be sold to U.S. readers. For example, when I look at my book on Amazon.com, Amazon knows from my customer log-in that I'm located in Canada. A green box on the right-hand side says: "This title is not available for customers from: Canada" And when I look at the same book on Amazon UK, that green box reads: "Kindle titles at Amazon.co.uk are available for UK customers only." So U.S. readers can buy the Kindle version at Amazon.com and UK readers can buy the Kindle version at Amazon UK, but Canadian readers must buy the ebook from Kobo. It may appear on Amazon.ca from Penguin soon, too - but that's their decision as they own the Canadian English rights.

[I. J. Parker]

Grant, that may be the solution. I'll run it by my agent.

[I. J. Parker]

And many thanks! That was super! :)

[Pepper Smith]

If you and your agent have access to a lawyer who handles these things, you could probably get advice on what you can do. I'm with a small press that got world English rights, so the paperback's available from online stores all over the world, and the ebook versions (I believe) can be bought in multiple countries. (When there's no advance involved, it seems advantageous to make it available as widely as possible.) As a result, I have no personal experience to offer here, just the suggestion that you consult a lawyer.

[I. J. Parker]

Thanks, Pepper. I don't want to spend money on this -- at least not yet. I don't think the agency will either. We'll work this out eventually. In the end, it's an illustration of how the electronic revolution affects old contracts.

[Stacy]

Man that sucks!

[I. J. Parker]

I think there are worse scenarios, for instance for authors who lost their electronic rights decades ago when nobody cared much and the main print contract was the important thing. The publishers are now free to use those rights without compensation. I think that issue has gone to court.

In my case, retaining foreign and non-US rights meant that those could be shopped separately. The big houses do not pursue foreign sales aggressively. My agent does.