Steinbeck Heirs Get Early Win

by Jim Milliot, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 6/13/2006

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Owen has ruled that a son and granddaughter of John Steinbeck hold the publishing rights to 10 Steinbeck works, including Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath and The Red Pony. Penguin has long been Steinbeck’s publisher, releasing his works under an agreement between the company and Steinbeck’s estate.

Last year, Thomas Steinbeck and Blake Smyle filed suit over control of the copyrights, and in his ruling Judge Owen found that copyright law gives heirs the right to renegotiate rights to works whose value has increased since the original deal was signed. Publishing attorney Lloyd Jassin noted the decision reflects the fact that under copyright law if an author of a pre-1978 work dies during the first 28-year term of copyright, the author's copyright stays in the family. “Even if that author assigned or willed his or her copyrights to a third party, the author’s statutory successors as determined by the Copyright Act, not unrelated third parties, would own the renewal term,” Jassin explained.

Although Penguin stopped short of saying they will appeal the decision, an appeal appears all but certain. “The decision issued by the district court last week is but the first round in what will be a long and complicated process,” Penguin’s Maureen Donnelly said in a statement. “Some of Steinbeck's classics published by Penguin are affected by the this decision; the purported terminations will not take effect for most of them for many years in the future.”