The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

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Rights battle turns towards digital

25.04.08 Benedicte Page

UK publishers are up in arms over HarperCollins US' insistence on retaining global digital rights for titles it sells to the UK, with tensions said to have come to a head at the London Book Fair last week.

One rights professional stated that while other US publishers have shifted their position, both HarperCollins US and Simon & Schuster US are still refusing to sell e-book rights to UK publishers: "Most have seen the light but HC is taking a different stance. I think UK publishers will find it hard to buy HC books."

A senior agent added: "The debate is between HC US and several British publishers about e-books. They want global territorial rights on the digital version, despite selling the print rights to different territories." Another publisher described HC US' position as "crazy", saying: "to reduce our publishing companies to mere distribution centres is not something I would like to see".

UK publishers confirmed that acquiring e-book rights was key to their publishing plans. Little, Brown c.e.o. Ursula Mackenzie said: "Virtually all UK publishers, as far as I'm aware, feel it is essential that e-book rights are included with volume rights—otherwise we could find ourselves in the position in a few years' time of spending money promoting a book in the UK, but anyone seeing our advertising but wanting to download it would download a US edition with a different cover, and we wouldn't get any commercial benefit despite having paid for the promotion that caused the sale. It just wouldn't make sense."

Penguin is among the publishers planning a major e-book programme for this autumn. Marketing and publicity director Joanna Prior said: "We believe territoriality goes with the printed book. We feel all the benefits will come from the noise around the publication of the book—the publicity and the marketing campaign—and it makes absolute sense that the e-book can be bought at the same time and place and, in Penguin's case, at the same price."

At Random House, which is planning to launch its first e-books in July, deputy c.e.o. Ian Hudson agreed, saying that the idea that territoriality could not be protected in a digital environment was untrue. "Amazon and Sony have both committed to the PA that they will protect territoriality, and the school that says you can't is not accurate—you only have to look at iTunes. There are all sorts of reasons why I would want to protect territoriality, to do with timing, cross-promotion of the e-book and physical book, and market pricing."

Simon Juden, c.e.o. of the PA, said he would expect digital rights to come with print rights: "among other things, the publisher who puts money into marketing the book should reap the rewards".

HarperCollins US and UK and Simon & Schuster US refused to comment.

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