Publishing Lesson #658: Rights Reversions and the Preserving Thereof
Not long ago, we talked about the extra responsibility incumbent upon publishers who use print-on-demand technology to define conditions for rights reversion. Because their books are never “out of print,” that phrase is at best useless for determining when to give authors rights to their books back. Instead, other conditions need to be agreed upon, such as a minimum royalty level or a time limit. Flying Pen Press, for example, gives both author and publisher the option to part ways after two years.
It’s usually POD publishers that authors have to be cautious of in this regard. If you’d asked me last week where the perpetual rights grabs usually happen, I’d say “in badly thought-out POD contracts” every time. I would never have expected an established commercial publisher, the sort with large imprints and print runs in the thousands, to be guilty of this oversight.
And in fact my expectations would be correct. Simon and Schuster aren’t guilty of an oversight. They’re doing this on purpose.
Media Bistro has the details:
“The new contract would allow Simon & Schuster to consider a book in print, and under its exclusive control, so long as it’s available in any form, including through its own in-house database — even if no copies are available to be ordered by traditional bookstores. With the new contract language, the publisher would be able stop printing a book and prevent the author from publishing it with any other house.”
Added president Roy Blount Jr., “A publisher is meant to publish, to get out there and sell our books. A publishing house is not supposed to be a place where our books are permanently squirreled away.” It’s a sentiment that Jane Litte at Dearauthor.com wholeheartedly agrees with. “The publisher is signaling that it will no longer include minimum sales requirements for a work to be considered in print. Simon & Schuster is apparently seeking nothing less than an exclusive grant of rights in perpetuity. Effectively, the publisher would co-own your copyright.”
Agent Kristin points out that (according to Publisher’s Lunch) S&S are potentially making this stuff non-negotiable. No sales thresholds, no time limits, never out of print. No rights reversion ever.
Why is this important to the author? Simply put, a publisher has no right hanging on to rights one second beyond their ability to exploit them for profit. S&S are giving themselves the ability to sit on a book forever, neither promoting it nor allowing the author to negotiate a deal with another publisher who will promote it. What they’re doing is making every contract a work-for-hire agreement in everything but name: sign here and all rights go to the publisher in perpetuity–or at least until the work enters public domain. Which doesn’t happen until after the author is dead. So, same diff.
And why is this important to readers? Dear Author tackles that question beautifully. In short, readers should care because S&S’s new boilerplate means more books they’ll never get to read. (Do go read the blog post in its entirety; it describes several scenarios in which this is true. It also provides a lucid explanation of copyright and reversion of rights. Read also the Writer Beware Blog post on this issue.)
Thankfully, no one seems to want to touch S&S’s new little innovation with a ten-foot pole. And why is this good? S&S are the test case. If they find enough authors willing to sign away their books for the life of copyright, other publishers will see an economic incentive to emulate S&S. And then it all goes to hell for us creative types a la the recording industry. It stops here–or it becomes business as usual all around. Me, I’m for the “stop it here” option. How about you?