When an eBook is not a Book

Random House v RosettaBooks

In the case between Random House and RosettaBooks and its CEO, Judge Stein has ruled that "because Random House is not likely to succeed on the merits of its copyright infringement claim and cannot demonstrate irreparable harm, its motion for a preliminary injunction should be denied." The judge ruled that Random House's licensing agreements to "print, publish and sell the work in book form" did not include eBooks.

Earlier this year Random House filed suit against RosettaBooks alleging that Random House owns exclusive rights to the titles (by William Styron, Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Parker), which RosettaBooks had recently acquired electronic rights over and had begun to sell.

RosettaBooks argued that Random House did not have rights over eBooks because there were fundamental differences between the two forms. The range of features differed as the eBook reading experience includes things like navigational aids (such as bookmarks and links), searchability, customization of the interface including annotations and font size displayed.

The judge's preliminary injunction opens the door wide open for the electronic rights of thousands of books, potentially affecting Random House's 20,000+ backlist of titles, as well as hundreds of thousands of titles from other publishers.

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