The Bookseller.com

10th October 2008

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Americans plot Indian rights grab

30.05.08 Benedicte Page

US publishers are attempting to ­capitalise on the booming £250m English-language market in India, demanding that the territory is separated out of the "UK and Commonwealth" rights traditionally bought by British publishers.

HarperCollins US is understood to be particularly insistent on the issue. "Jane [Friedman] went to India and now she feels she's Columbus—that she's discovered it," said one trade insider. "It's a very America-centric view of the world." A HarperCollins UK insider added: "The whole area has been quite knotty."

Derek Johns at A P Watt said there were regular protests from US publishers because A P Watt always secured India rights for the authors it represented for UK publishers. "The argument against doing this is that it's basically a vestige of empire with no place in the 21st century but it's the UK publishers who have made the investment [in India]," he said.

Philippa Milnes-Smith, head of the Association of Authors Agents, added: "There is some sense that the US would like to get their hands on India but what are the demonstrable benefits to authors? If a publisher is going to take a territory, the burden of proof has to be with them to show they are going to make the most of it." She said the case US publishers were making for taking India rights was "not crystalline and compelling".

Penguin c.e.o. Peter Field said that US editions were leaking into India, with Indian wholesalers happy to take US editions from export reps even when "Commonwealth" rights were sold to the UK. "All publishers are finding this an issue," he said. Field believes India should be defined as an exclusive territory for a particular publisher, whether US, UK or other. "It's a developed market and deserves the respect of being treated as a territory that is cared for."

HC US said its policy had not changed. Adam Rothberg of Simon and Schuster US, also understood to be keen to take Indian rights, said: "We approach India on a book-by-book basis. There are instances where we have retained rights and others where we have allowed rights to go to UK publishers."

The India issue comes as US and UK publishers clash over global digital rights, and follows their row over Europe.

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