From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #329 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Monday, May 21 2001 Volume 01 : Number 329 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 21:20:19 -0600 From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: [AML] iPublish Contract May 17, 2001 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TIME WARNER E-BOOK CONTRACT COULD BE BIG MISTAKE FOR FIRST-TIME AUTHORS New York -- The Authors Guild today warned its members that experimenting in digital publishing with Time Warner's new iPublish division presents substantial legal risks and loss of literary rights for little pay. The Guild urged all writers, including new writers not yet eligible for Guild membership, to approach iPublish with extreme caution. Established writers who are merely dabbling in a new medium may find they've inadvertently granted a laundry list of rights to Time Warner and agreed to a bargain-basement advance for print rights to their work. Worse yet, writers surrender rights to their next work as well, agreeing to sell the digital rights to iPublish for advances as low as $25 or less. Writers agree to the terms of this contract by merely submitting their manuscripts to iPublish. "The seductive appeal of e-book publication should not blind authors to the risk involved in the iPublish contract," said Guild president Letty Cottin Pogrebin. "No professional writer or responsible agent would accept terms that call for the author's virtual surrender of basic literary rights, yet with its pitiful advances and Draconian option clause, this contract does just that. The Authors Guild deplores Time Warner's exploitive approach. We strongly advise authors who are interested in digital publication to hold out for a publishing partner who respects their work and a publishing agreement that reflects fundamental standards of fair industry practice." The publishing contract contains several unusual provisions that could prove costly to unwary writers. The terms are among the worst the Authors Guild has seen from a publisher of any size or reputation. For example: 1. WRITERS GRANT BROAD RIGHTS TO iPUBLISH. Writers expecting they are granting merely e-book rights are in for a surprise: Time Warner claims the exclusive rights to any means of delivering digital content, regardless of whether those means have yet been invented. The sweeping definition of digital rights granted includes audio book rights and rights to digitally printed books, such as print-on-demand books. The writer also grants Time Warner an option (discussed below) on the traditional print rights to the work. 2. ROYALTIES ARE LOW. Royalties for e-books are pegged at 25% of net sales (except in the highly unlikely event that the author earns $25,000 from digital media sales). This is a scant amount for e-book royalties, since e-books can be produced at practically no cost. 3. NO ADVANCE IS PAID FOR THE E-BOOK. Time Warner's iPublish is selective in the works it chooses to publish as an e-book. Just as a publisher pays the author an advance when it selectively acquires rights to publish a work in traditional form, so should a publisher pay an advance when it selects a work to publish electronically, especially when the publisher ties up other literary rights as well. 4. PRINT BOOK ADVANCE IS LOCKED IN AT $5,000. Time Warner obtains an exclusive option to publish the work in print form. This option is carefully crafted to assure that the author (a) won't receive more than $5,000 as an advance and (b) won't be able to effectively negotiate a competing bid from another publisher. The advance for print publication is fixed at $5,000, even if the author and Time Warner fail to agree to the other contractual terms. If, on failing to negotiate an agreement with Time Warner, the author goes to another publisher, Time Warner still has the option to obtain the work on the same terms as the other publisher, but never has to pay an advance greater than $5,000. 5. TIME WARNER CONTROLS THE AUTHOR'S NEXT WORK. Regardless of whether Time Warner acquires the print rights to the original work, it has a claim on the author's next work. It can acquire those rights by exercising an option equal to the proceeds the author earns for the first work. A creative writing student, for example, who uses Time Warner's iPublish to publish a collection of short stories which are bought by a few classmates and friends, earning the author $25 in royalties, would find that Time Warner has a $25 option to the author's next work, which could be a best-selling first novel or memoir. If Time Warner chooses to put that work into print form, it could do so and be assured that its advance payment won't exceed $5,000. 6. AUTHORS COULD BE FORCED TO PAY TIME WARNER FOR SPECIOUS CLAIMS. If anyone makes a claim that an author's work is libelous or invades privacy, regardless of the merits of that claim, Time Warner has the right to settle the claim without the author's approval and charge the author for the settlement amount and Time Warner's legal fees. There is no provision for insuring the author against such claims, as is generally included in traditional publishing contracts. While iPublish provides a link to this contract on its Web site, the site otherwise makes little mention of the extensive rights and options writers grant to Time Warner by submitting their manuscripts. The Guild believes there are serious legal questions as to whether writers may license exclusive rights to a publisher merely by submitting a manuscript for review. Even a broad grant of nonexclusive rights, however, would effectively block authors from licensing most of those rights elsewhere. Writers seeking more information may contact the Guilds legal services department at staff@authorsguild.org or 212-563-5904. ================= Since this is a press release permission is granted to forward. Barbara R. Hume Editorial Empress TechVoice, Inc. barbara@techvoice.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 12:08:17 -0500 From: Jonathan Langford Subject: [AML] Church's Copyright Project (was: Public Domain) Someone (I've lost track of who) wrote: >What makes ED a special case is that unpublished material is not >necessarily in the public domain (which is why Willa Cather's letter >> remain unpublished, per her will) and a scholar who published a >> I have an acquaintance who works extensively with Mormon history and archives, who pointed out to me some interesting implications of copyright law as they apply to private manuscript collections. Apparently, as of 1 January 2003, any unpublished material held by archives since at least 1973 enters the public domain. (On 1 January 2004, materials held since 1974 enter the public domain, and so on.) This affects the Church every bit as much as it does university archives and the special collections of all other private and public institutions. After that date the only way for the Church--or Willa Cather's executors, or the holders of any other covered materials--to prevent publication is to deny access and hope that they haven't previously given access to anyone who has photocopied or transcribed the documents. Apparently, because the Church feels strongly about maintaining some control over the key documents of our history and the sacred contents of some of them, there is now a push in place to "publish" as many of the Church Archives as possible on limited-edition, high-quality CDs, with indexes of images, title pages, etc. Short lists of absolutely critical documents, and long lists of desirable documents, have been compiled--millions of potential images. The project is so massive that no attempt is being made to publish the papers of ordinary 19th century Church members (pioneer diaries, correspondence, and photographs)--it is more essential that documents from the Joseph Smith period, the Brigham Young papers, and three million patriarchal blessings be protected by copyright. It sounds like an enormous effort. I assume that the same law affects literary materials as well as ecclesiastical documents. Apparently, the intent of the changes to the copyright law was to promote the publication or availability of archival materials. So beginning in 2003, we may see a great outpouring of previously unavailable literary materials, both LDS-related and general, as scholars take advantage of collections that have not been protected as the Church is attempting to protect its collection. My friend also commented that many people assume that if a scholar is permitted to publish an archival manuscript, the scholar copyrights that manuscript. This is not necessarily true. As many institutions (including, apparently, the LDS Church) handle it, the owner may grant permission for a scholar to use a document while maintaining ownership and copyright over the document. In this case, he scholar owns copyright only to his or her editing, commentary, judgments in transcription, etc. In cases like this, the scholar also isn't the only one who can print the basic document; rather, the copyright holder maintains that right and may grant permission to others. Interesting stuff. Jonathan Langford Speaking for myself, not the List - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #329 ******************************