You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Authors are increasingly considering global rights as a solution to issues of territoriality in the wake of digital books, the Society of Authors has said.
The Society's deputy secretary general, Kate Pool, said as authors were feeling the financial impact of globalisation and digitisation, there was increased interest in this potential avenue from among the SoA’s members. She said: "If territorial rights don’t work, and global rights are the only ones that will, that at some point will have to be reflected in the contract."
As subsidiary rights offer lower royalty payments, a British writer could be hurt by a UK citizen buying a cheaper e-book from a US site. "Not only are [the customers] buying books in an illegal territory, it also means much smaller royalties for the author," she said. "And if this becomes more widespread, how would an agent ever be able to sell certain territorial rights?"
Pool said the SoA was also concerned about the general threats to coprights, from the likes of Scribd.com. The most recent issue of SoA’s magazine The Author said the society found Scribd’s approach towards checking copyright "unacceptable", "financially damaging" and "mak[ing] a mockery of exclusive licences".
But Pool said she had since been in contact with the company, and felt it was "at least trying to do the right thing, which many don’t". However, she added: "We feel if they are trying to act as a legitimate conduit, they should perhaps go beyond the strict requirements of the law. This doesn’t just affect Scribd - it would be unfair to suggest they are the only website doing this - but it is a big problem, which if there is no solution in this way, might mean rights have to be organised differently."