Reversion of rights
I was with Triskelion.
After all the fuss, all the angst with the bankruptcy court, Siren Publishing bought all our remaining contracts at the sale and gave us release letters, for which I will always be grateful to them. I learned several things from the experience, and I share them with you, so you don't have to learn them the hard way.
1. If a company goes into bankruptcy, whatever it says in your contract, the bankruptcy courts have the right to pull your contract back. Furthermore, if they suspect the company has been deliberately disposing its assets (and an author contract is counted as an asset) they can do it retrospectively. Just think about that for a minute, and the mess it could stir up. The bankruptcy clause in any author contract effectively means nothing. There needs to be a test case, probably on the question of if an author contract is really an asset without the cooperation and goodwill of the author.
2. It takes time. Bankruptcy proceedings won't be rushed. This is potentially a career killer. While bankruptcy is going through all the hoops, you can't touch the books. If you contracted for a series or characters, you can't touch them, either.
3. Siren gave us one release letter, which publishers accepted as valid. So if AMP published one release letter, worded properly, it would work for all the authors. Or if the company officially closed, that would work, too, since all contracts with the company would be null.
I'm really sorry about the 1099's. But don't forget - the IRS caught Al Capone when the FBI didn't (lol, not serious, I know it was more complicated than that). So if she has now got the IRS involved, that could be her big mistake.
