Agents and publishers grapple over 'enhanced' e-book rights

12.03.10 | Benedicte Page in The Bookseller

Enhanced e-books, which offer multi­media content such as video, are emerging as a new right in the marketplace, with publishers and agents tussling over who should own them.

The increasing popularity of the Apple iPhone and imminent arrival of the iPad has led to a surge in interest in enhanced e-books. A Mobclix survey revealed this week that there were more books than games available for download as applications for the iPhone.

Some publishers, such as Canongate, negotiate their enhanced e-books on a case-by-case basis with agents. However, others take a more broad-brush approach, with a Hachette spokesperson stating "we aim to get all digital rights".

Some publishers are understood to favour a broad definition of electronic rights, which would fold "enhanced" e-books in with the verbatim text e-book right, often granted to publishers as a matter of course. However, agents are keen to mark out a distinction between text e-books and others with additional multimedia elements.

Tom Williams of Peters, Fraser & Dunlop said: "We think that for publishers to do e-books is a very good thing since if they're not available it encourages piracy. Enhanced e-books are a different proposition and we see them as a separate right." Eugenie Furniss of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment also said the agency negotiated e-book and enhanced e-book rights separately.

Jim Gill of United Agents said the enhanced e-book "seems to us an all-encompassing category that some publishers are seeking to throw a rope around at the moment, potentially covering anything from incidental music with an e-book edition or author interviews, right out to highly designed and produced iPhone applications."

He said while some basic enhancements might be covered by an existing grant of e-book rights, "beyond that we're talking about very sophisticated products which don't resemble at all what we'd all understand to be ‘a book' licensed under a volume-rights agreement". Gill added United Agents would "no sooner naturally sell those rights to a book publisher than we'd sell them film rights."

The need for all parties to define terms has also becoming a pressing issue. Penguin is understood to be particularly proactive in approaching literary agents to clarify its boilerplate language on digital rights via contracts director Louise Hughes.­ Michael Bhaskar, digital publishing manager of Profile Books, said wording was difficult in what was still a very new area. "In all contracts it's becoming a more difficult question. It's positive, because it means a greater level of awareness that we have to get this right," he said.