Riddle me this...

Diem_Allen

"Jane, get me off this crazy thing!
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I wrote to PA to tell them that I would not be renewing my contract with them come next year. (I wish I had never fallen for their evil ways.) They responded quickly with this letter.

"We have received your request to not renew the contract. Therefore, your contract will expire and your book will go out of print on 3/19/14. If or when your contract is terminated or expires, you own the unformatted text only, and you can do as you choose with that alone.

PublishAmerica continues to own the ISBN number, the cover design, and the layout design of the text. Any use of any of these items would be a serious and very clear case of infringement. Therefore, you can use the same design only if we transfer the rights to you, or to your new publishing company. If you would like to use the cover or layout design, we would transfer the rights to your cover design and/or text layout, and provide you with high resolution pdf files of each. The cover design would cost $500, and/or the text layout would cost $250.

Again, you own the unformatted text only, and you can do as you choose with that alone."


Now tell me how can they possibly say they own the cover when I am the artist that designed the cover as well as every illustration in the book?! Are they saying that the book can't be printed in the same formation as they printed it? No problem I wasn't thrilled with that format any way. So I move my illustrations around revamp them and what alter some text, again no problem. But how can they say they own the cover I designed and sent to them to use? Grrrrrr!
What if I take this book and add it to a compilation of three other stories that follow, that changes the whole book entirely into a new book, right? There has to be a work around to this. I am not paying them $500 for my own art work.

Any advice?
 

veinglory

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If you provided the complete cover you own that, if you provided just the art, you own that (unless you transferred ownership at any point). I imagine they sent a stock reply on this issue and most people let them make the cover.
 

Chris P

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I imagine they sent a stock reply on this issue and most people let them make the cover.

Yep. The reply you got was word-for-word (and dollar-for-dollar) the one I got.

I imagine you will meet with a stone wall if you tried to get a response from them. I am not a lawyer, so I don't want to tell you to just go do what you want since you own the cover, but you can probably just go do what you want since you own the cover.
 

Torgo

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*** I AM NOT A LAWYER KLAXON ***

On the typesetting: you can, as far as I know, assert copyright in the typographical arrangement of a book, and I think in the UK that lasts for 25 years from first publication. However, it's not the sort of thing that comes up much, and threatening you about it is typical PA douchebaggery.

What they are claiming ownership of is the totality of the way words and illustrations are arranged on the page - the leading, the kerning, the type, the margins etc - and they are very likely entitled to do that. But you don't want to use their typesetting, because PA likely put the absolute minimum care and effort into it, and thus you don't like the results. The words themselves are still yours and can be re-set any way you like without infringing.

(I can't imagine paying $250 for PA's typesetting. It was probably done by an algorithm inDesign. You'd be able to do better yourself, I'll bet.)
 

Chris P

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After my pub rights come back to me in another 17 months, I wonder if I'll get a new offer: "Miss us? We miss you! Reactivate your book with PublishAmerica for $299!"
 

Diem_Allen

"Jane, get me off this crazy thing!
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After my pub rights come back to me in another 17 months, I wonder if I'll get a new offer: "Miss us? We miss you! Reactivate your book with PublishAmerica for $299!"

I needed that laugh. Thank you!