Writers Union Attacks Simon & Schuster Rights Policy

By Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 5/29/2007 11:08:00 AM

The National Writers Union is joining the Authors Guild in calling on Simon & Schuster to rescind changes in its contracts that permits the publisher to retain rights to a book even if it is stored only as an electronic file rather than returning the rights back to the author.

"Simon & Schuster is violating the principle that a publisher should retain rights to a book only if it continues to invest significantly in the work," said NWU president Jerry Colby. "This move is a naked power grab." S&S has argued that with improvements in print-on-demand technology it has the ability to keep an author’s book available for sale over the term of the license. That is not a good enough reason to keep the rights, the NWU believes. "It costs virtually nothing to keep an electronic file on a computer waiting for the occasional customer," Colby said. "It does not represent a significant investment and certainly should not be an excuse for tying up rights." If POD is the only feasible way to keep some older titles available, Colby said, those rights should be controlled by the author, not the publisher.

The volley of accusations began when the Authors Guild spoke out against a change in S&S has made to its standard book contract, the language of which stipulates that a book is considered "in print" as long as it is available in any form--electronically, or for POD, even if no physical copies are available for order by bookstores--meaning S&S would retain the rights, which, under the old contracts, would have reverted to the author once the number of available books dropped below an agreed upon point. Agents, and now NWU, have also joined the fray. S&S spokesperson Adam Rothberg said the Authors Guild is "overreacting. These changes are being made to accommodate changes in the marketplace. We want to sell more copies of our authors books."

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