Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Bilbary Updates: Author Contract and Random House Deal

Bilbary signed a deal with Random House.  summarized the scope and outlook while adding some very interesting comments about Bilbary's position in the marketplace.
 http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/bilbary-now-carrying-random-house-ebook-titles/

Some of the issues I have with Bilbary's supplier (author) contract have been addressed within its July update to the contract. However, remaining to be resolved is a problem within section 5, specific to the "Taxes" section. Within it, Bilbary expressly states it owns all submitted titles.

I pursued the issue with Bilbary management and have been assured that senior management and lawyers will act to define more clearly this section so that copyright and content owners, publishers, and/or representative agents won't have to fight this one out with Bilbary in the courts or through arbitration. I was told that this "Taxes" section is governed by the contents of the entire contract, where ownership is clearly defined within a different section. However, it would be difficult for authors to defend their ownership rights when s/he signed a contract that states Bilbary owns all titles.

As such, I requested that Bilbary modify the "Taxes" section to state something like, "For tax-reporting purposes only, Bilbary is legally required to state that it owns the titles. Because the scope of this definition applies to tax-reporting only. It does not constitute a legally-binding transfer of content and copyright and/or other intellectual-property rights from content owners, their distributors and/or representation to Bilbary."

I'll share their reply as soon as I get one.

Take care,
LC

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for taking the time to discuss that, I really feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic.
    http://janinepatterson.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad the info was helpful! Thank you for visiting my blog and for commenting. I'll post again on this topic once Bilbary responds.

    Take care,
    LC

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for following up on this! Be interesting to see if/how/when they make those final changes :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. To date, Bilbary appears concerned with pleasing authors and seems willing to modify the contract to address concerns. I think clarification of content ownership within the "Taxes" subsection is absolutely necessary if Bilbary hopes to attract indie authors and publishers. If it's not modified and Bilbary remains silent on the issue, then indie authors would be fools to sign such a contract.

    This made me think about the flurry of comments tied to Smashwords' announcement introducing Library Direct and its new library-price field.

    In general, several folks are upset that libraries will own titles and can lend them out indefinitely. In some ways, I think Bilbary (with its focus on attracting libraries) might be implying that libraries would own the titles they purchase/receive, but it isn't stated in the contract as such. Then, I question such a statement (that Bilbary owns all the titles) in a "Taxes" subsection tied to the author-royalties section.

    It doesn't make sense to keep it as is. You know what, maybe Bilbary, with its ties to legacy publishing, could keep everything as is as a tactic for excluding indie authors. Not sure why the big publishers would sign this contract then. But what if there was a different contract for them?

    Only the shadow knows ... and Bilbary management, of course.

    Take care,
    LC

    ReplyDelete

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Take care,
LC Cooper