Book People Archive

Rosetta Books dispute

I have been following the dispute between Rosetta Books and Random House
closely.  In some quarters (including on this message board) it is being
discussed in moral terms, with the rapacious publishers oppressing the
suffering creative class.  This is highly entertaining, something like the
film The Matrix applied to the world of intellectual property, but it
doesn't reach to the fundamental issue, which is a contract dispute.  I
would say "contract dispute pure and simple" except that contract disputes
are never pure and simple, but they are contract disputes.  And they are
disputes about money--pure and simple.  This matter is not going to be
resolved in the court of public opinion for the--simple--reason that it is
not the public's business: it is a dispute between two parties, not among
society as a whole.  There is a process to deal with this kind of thing.
It's called the courts.  This posturing in the press is silly.  The answer
to the questions are not going to be answered by you and me but by a jury.

It is noteworthy that the amount of money in question is small.  Most
current publishing contracts tie up digital rights; there is no future in
agents and authors playing this game.  It's only the old stuff where there
is a potential dispute, and the economic value of the old stuff almost
always declines year by year.  On top of that is the still tiny economic
value of ebooks, especially for consumer titles.  This will change over
time, sure, but as it changes, the market opportunity for the old stuff
continues to decline.   With 60,000 new titles published in the U.S. every
year, it is hard to see how it could go any other way.

There is a lot that is wrong with intellectual property law, but the Rosetta
dispute doesn't speak to any of it.

By the way, before anyone tries to figure out what my personal agenda on
this issue might be, allow me to disclose that I am a former publisher
(including a stint at Random House), who now works in the Internet industry
for the simple reason that publishers have been too slow for my taste in
working with digital media.  That puts me, I think, squarely on both sides
of the matter.

Joseph J. Esposito
Portable CEO
613 Spring St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
<mailto: espositoj@[redacted]
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