There is a report that Simon & Schuster US are trying to alter their publishing contract to extend their copyright control of an author’s work “in perpetuity”. Normally, rights to a work will revert to the author once it is deemed out of print. I do hope this isn’t true or, if it is, that S&S quickly change their policy. Otherwise, it looks certain to attract considerable bad publicity.
The US Authors Guild says: “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.â€
We’ll be covering this on the Litopia podcast.
