Question

Barbara is an economist researcher and commentator. The Eco Books Ltd offers her $13,000 for writing a book about economics principles. Barbara has never written a book about economics principles, but accepts the offer and writes the economics book called ‘Principles of Economics’. She assigns the book’s copyright for $13,400 to The Eco Books Ltd. The book is published and she is paid. She also sells the book’s manuscript to the Eco Books Ltd’s library for $4,350 plus several interview manuscripts she has collected while writing the economics book for which she receives $3,200. Discuss each of the above payments to Barbara separately and states if these are income from Barbara’s personal exertion. (2.5 marks) Would your answer differ if Barbara wrote the Principles of Economics’ book before signing a contract with The Eco Books Ltd in her spare time and only decided to sell it later? (2.5 marks) Support your answer by referring to relevant statutory and case law.

Answer 1

​​​A) Writing a book as a part of the contract ,selling it's copyrights, manuscripts and interview :-

1) When a person writes a book as a part of the contract , he or she can accept payment for their work . Thus the payment of $13,000 is legal and binding .

2) In a book contract , usually the author retains the copyright of the book . However in this case , the author has sold the copyright , manuscripts as well as the interview conducted by her .

3) Thus in the above case she is giving up all right of claiming the work and she would be unable to insist to publish her name as an author of the book.

​​B) Individual writing of the book without the contract :-

1) If the author had written the book before entering into any contract , she would have only sold the publishing right to the book .

2).This means the the publisher is bound to give due credit to the author for writing the book , by no chance claim this work to be their and by no means copy her work and use it in other references too .

3) An essential element of publishing right is the selling of book by authors name itself .

C) Relevant Case Law :-

Darla Yoos , Edwin Mc Call and Kerry Levine v. PublishAmerica

1) In the above case three publishers filed an action lawsuit against print on demand book company claiming that the publisher is presenting itself as a traditional publisher and claiming that the book is full of errors and the publishing house is threatening them to pay from their pockets else they will not correct the errors.

2) The Court upheld that the publishers were liable to correct the errors themselves and pay compensation to the authors of the books for the inconvenience borne by them due to publishers negligence.