The dilemma of the enhanced e-books

Until recently, ebooks were ‘just’ digital copies of printed books. But with the increasing popularity of the Apple platforms iPhone and the coming iPad, that can do much more than just show text, a new form of eBook emerges, the ‘enhanced’ ebook. In enhanced ebooks, the texts are enriched with multimedia content. This has raised an issue between publishers and literary agents. Should the rights to enhanced ebooks be treated differently from normal eBooks? How many pieces of additional content may an ebook contain and still count as a book? Should a new category be created to which the rights should be acquired independently?

A growing group of agents feel that publishers should not automatically have the right to publish enhanced versions. Jim Gill of the British firm United Agents says that his firm sees enhanced eBooks as a new category of publication.  He states the enhanced ebook "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." According to Gill, a limited number of enhancements can, without any trouble, be covered with existing licences. But current licences do not cover everything: "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" United Agent, says Gill, would "no sooner naturally sell those rights to a book publisher than we'd sell them film rights."

Publishers would rather acquire all rights at the same time.

Dutch writers, according to ereaders.nl, often work without agents and negotiate with writers themselves. As a tool, writers often use the model contract of the Dutch author society. In this model contract, that was recently amended with

www.ereaders.nl/15031001_verrijkt_ebook_onderwerp_van_boekrechtendebat