The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

Authors resist new Random contracts

25.07.08 Benedicte Page

Agents and author representatives are protesting over new contract templates from the Random House Group. The controversy hinges on the definition of "out of print" in the digital environment, with one agent saying RHG was "trying to power through enormous changes to the contractual precedent".

The dispute echoes last year's conflict in the US, when American authors' body the Authors Guild forced Simon & Schuster US to back down on attempts to change authors' contracts so that a book could not be deemed "out of print" if it was available in e-format.

Society of Authors deputy general secretary Kate Pool said her major concern with RHG's new boilerplate was an out-of-print clause allowing rights reversion only if the publisher cannot supply a physical or elec-tronic copy of a book within a month, or if there have been no royalty earnings for a year. The author body plans to raise the issue with RHG.

Pool said: "Random House could long since have given up actively publishing your book, it could have sold one copy a year for the past three years, and take three weeks to produce a print-on-demand copy, but you can't terminate the contract. We can see e-books are another way of reaching readers, and that print on demand for old titles has advantages, but this is a way that publishers can sit on rights for years on end."

Philippa Milnes-Smith, president of the Association of Authors' Agents, said that a "number" of agents had "raised concerns about RH's approach to negotiating boilerplates". She said there had been concern "over the terms being proposed and the approaches being made to the negotiations".

A senior agent was also concerned about RHG's move to standardise high discount provision across all RHG imprints, "to the disadvantage of authors". The agent added: "Random House wants the high discount rate to start at what most will regard as normal rates."

Random House issued this statement in response to the criticism: "Our initiative to modernise our contracts started over two years ago and we have received significant praise from both authors and agents for the clear and concise language and our balanced approach.

"We cannot comment on individual negotiations which are subject to confidentiality, but our contracts have always contained high discount clauses which rightly reflect modern market realities, and authors benefit hugely from their titles entering major promotions.

"When we acquire a new title, we commit to the author to do the very best job we can to publish and sell their book. Understandably, we believe we should have the right to continue to sell that book for as long as there is a viable market for it and responsibly take advantage of all new digital technologies.

"We continue to work closely with the author and agent community to implement terms that are fair, but also reflect the fast-changing nature of the modern publishing industry."

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