Sorry Anna Nicole Smith. I still love you baby.Silly question, right. I think so. I am anti ownership of art once it has been created and given to the audience. It should belong to them to do with as they please. Questions of ownership disgust me really.
So why am I yapping then. Big debate over who owns the e-book rights to publisher's backlist catalogues. Since e-books didn't exist when the contracts were negotiated, they should be fair game, right? That's not how this is gonna work though. Major publishers are playing harball. Refusing to work with anyone who doesn't forfeit e-book rights.
Whatever fuckers.. I have no opinion except all this shit makes me wonder why artists even create art and why publishers publish it if they're all gonna act like a bunch of assholes. I know the answer is money, but fuck.
Here's what they're saying over at The New York Times
“The stakes are very high for publishers because the business is migrating substantially to e-book format,” Mr. Gottlieb said. “Some publishers are expecting 50 percent of their total sales by 2015 to be in the e-book format. A good percentage of a publisher’s income comes from backlist titles. And if they don’t have the rights to digital rights to their backlist titles, that’s a very substantial financial hit.”
(This picture ruined my night of masturbation, thanks a lot!)
ReplyDeleteRight on, brother. Call me a hippy but when someone feels strongly enough to write because they feel they have something to share with the world, maybe we should, oh, I don't know, let the world hear what they have to say.
Bugs me that it is always about the poor rich publishers, boo hoo. Let the authors do what they want with the ebooks, or pay them for those too.
ReplyDeleteTired of hearing about the "hit" they take. What about their writers?
Just shut up.