J.D. Issues relating to electronic rights appear in a number of places within the four corners of a book publishing agreement. Publishers and authors alike should be reviewing the agreements they use or sign respectively to make certain those agreements reflect their positions when it comes to these all-important issues. The Grant of Rights Provisions Clearly one of the major provisions is whether or not the author has granted the publisher so-called electronic rights to the work in question. I say so-called because I have seen many agreements that refer to such rights without defining them.
Some agreements merely refer to a grant of all rights of whatsoever nature.
The bundle of electronic rights can also be segmented into what might be called electronic data storage, electronic data retrieval, electronic database rights and the like. Thus, the parties must examine their agreement to see which party has granted or retained such electronic rights and what that party can do with those rights. Within virtually every publishing agreement there are provisions whereby an author represents and warrants that he or she owns the rights being granted to the publisher. Thus, the issue of whether or not the author actually owns electronic rights becomes important. Now clearly if the author is the sole author of everything in the book, the author is then the owner of all such rights.