I am not a doctor, nor
do I play one on teevee. Nonetheless, I have identified a new condition that I
hope will be accepted in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). This
condition is called “Literary Stockholm Syndrome” (“LSS”).
HISTORY
-- As previously reported in several
scholarly blogs, in the guise of my alter ego Ken Charles, I entered into two
ill-advised contracts with a small electronic publisher called Naughty Nights
Press (“NNP”). NNP drafted “Author Agreements” with a clause that it physically
was incapable of performing. When certain creative disputes (plural) arose, NNP
resorted to ad hominem attacks rather
than professional attempts to resolve the disputes. Accordingly, I relied on
the publisher’s inability to perform the agreement, inter alia, as grounds to terminate the two agreements. I used the
agreement clause that NNP wrote that gave NNP three months to cure any
“non-compliance” or the agreement terminated. Despite failing to cure the
“non-compliances”, NNP refused to acknowledge that the agreements were
terminated. On May 30th, however, NNP sent an email regarding one of the works
that stated in part, “you now have control of that work.”
I made several attempts to settle our
differences with NNP, with NNP acknowledging that the rights to the two works
belonged to me, and both parties going their own way. I even let one of their
most prolific authors attempt to mediate. However, when I attempted to self
publish the two works on Amazon in August, NNP sent a DMCA take down notice
claiming rights to the works.
I filed a lawsuit against NNP. NNP failed
to defend the suit. On January 24, the Court entered a default judgment against
NNP, awarding me all rights to the two works. The Court found that NNP never
secured any rights.
DIAGNOSIS OF “LITERARY
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME” -- Affected NNP Authors (hereinafter referred to as “Patients”)
present with varying degrees of sympathy and attachments to NNP despite
demonstrable failures of NNP to abide by the “Author Agreements” that it
drafted. One patient, when expressing complete devotion to NNP, affirmatively
stated that she did not want to know the facts. NNP gave her a chance so she
was siding with NNP. Period. End of discussion. Another patient believes that
an author who actually enforces the author’s rights under a publishing contract
will be shunned. A third patient suggested that filing a lawsuit to enforce an
author’s rights was unnecessary and wrong because rights will revert at the end
of the contract term.
TREATMENT
OF “LITERARY STOCKHOLM SYNDROME” -- Basically, patients suffering from LSS
should be treated like cult victims with a measured deprogramming. First, they
need to understand that a publishing contract creates a business relationship
between the author and the publisher. It does not make the author the
publisher’s employee. Claims by NNP’s owner to the contrary, the author does
not work for NNP. Similarly, the author agreement does not make the parties
friends. The author agreement makes the author the publisher’s business
partner.
Second, the patient needs to actually
read the author agreement that the patient signed. Ideally, the patient should
have read the agreement before signing it. Regardless, the patient needs to
understand what the agreement obligates the parties to do. Every clause in the
agreement has meaning. If the agreement, hypothetically, obligates the
publisher to provide templates to the author for the selection of the work’s
format, then the publisher must provide such templates, or it will commit a
“non-compliance” or breach. If the publisher doesn’t actually have any such
templates, then it can hardly complain when it is called to task for failing to
provide them.
Third, the patient needs to be placed in
white room with a television that has the conclusion of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan playing on a continuous loop until
the patient finally understands that the good of the many oft times outweighs
the good of the few or of the one. Even though a publisher like NNP may be the
only publisher that would touch the patient’s work, it is the author’s
obligation to the writing community to warn other authors of the dealings of
predatory publishers. When a publisher will not abide by the agreements it
drafts, an author has the obligation to enforce the author’s rights up to and
including, if necessary, filing a lawsuit to declare, protect and enforce those
rights.
CK Copyright 1/26/13; Moral rights to be identified as the author of
the foregoing article asserted worldwide (including in Great Britain in
accordance with Sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of
1988) (See prior blog on Moral Rights).
