Court Denies Random House's Motion, Rosetta Continues to Sell eBooks

Random House v RosettaBooks

By Planet eBook Editor
February 13, 2002

The U.S. Court of Appeals has upheld its original decision to deny Random House's motion for a preliminary injunction, meaning RosettaBooks can continue to sell the eBooks it had acquired electronic publishing sales rights for. But of course the case is not over -- a Random House representative has already announced that the company will continue with the case in the District Court.

"We see this as another important victory for Authors, Agents and all those with a vested interest in the development of a dynamic ePublishing/eReading market place unencumbered by the baggage of the physical publishing world," said RosettaBooks CEO Leo Dwyer.

Last year Random House filed suit against RosettaBooks alleging that Random House owned 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.

Since then Random House decided to appeal the decision. According to the company "Random House believed that the District Court misconstrued the prior cases dealing with 'new technological uses' by emphasizing the mode of delivery as opposed to the content. The eBook contains the exact same text as the print book."

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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