Interesting tidbit from Jayne Rylon's latest newsletter.  She paid EC to get her rights back to 8 of her books and it cost her nearly 5 figures to do so.  So, another source of income for EC, squeeze the authors for money to get their books back.

Plus, then you have to trust EC to update the site to remove your book. I remember one publisher selling books for months after the rights were suppose to be returned. 

It's going to be a mess. If she goes bankrupt, then the rights they still have will revert to the new owner, as sold by the court. Copyrights are company assets. 

Apparently, even if a writer's contract says that in a bankruptcy the rights revert back to the author, that's not a legally enforceable agreement. Since Federal Bankruptcy law supersedes any state bankrupt laws.

Those who work in the industry say that unless you sue to get your rights back, early, then you can't be considered a creditor and won't get your rights back. You'll be stuck with whatever new publisher buys out the rights from the bankruptcy court.

In the past, some indy publishers (I don't remember who it was) bid on a set of writer’s rights in a backruptcy and then stopped bidding against each other when they realized they were just buying them to revert the rights back to the authors. You can’t bet that every publisher will be so nice and just give them back.

So the writers are having to decide now whether to file for their rights back, if they can afford it, or see if EC pulls out of this okay. I'd hate have to be deciding that!

Dear Author has just had the case against them moved to a Federal court, out of the State court. Apparently, with the though in mind that Federal courts won't put up with what EC did in lower courts in the past.

Here.

At a minimum, this indicates to PG that Ellora’s Cave will have a real fight on its hands. He is not familiar with Ohio laws and practices, but many federal courts have the reputation for not putting up with a lot of smoke and mirrors on the part of parties or their attorneys. In prior litigation in state court, EC reportedly was extremely dilatory in responding to requests for financial documents, etc. PG would not have wanted to try to defend such behavior in most of the federal courts where he appeared in past years.

This may be the only time you  will ever hear me say this, but I'm disappointed with Brooklyn Public Library. They bought several EC e-book titles today, and best I can figure, all of them were Jaid Black titles. Highly disappointing.

Courtney Milan is interested (read that obsessed) with the case.  She put together a great blog post for those interested that haven't seen it with links to declarations filed.

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2014/10/22/the-exciting-world-of-the-tro-notchilled/

That lawyer sure writes a tasty declaration.

I will have to read that later Issa.  I admit, I was following closely to start with but haven't been lately.

Courtney Milan is interested (read that obsessed) with the case.  She put together a great blog post for those interested that haven't seen it with links to declarations filed.

Wow. What a great post. I admit that I do struggle with the legal stuff depending on how dense it is written. Taxes my brain. But this made it easy to understand what the motion details are, and what Dear Author is up to.

Good on them!

DA also filed an answer and a counter claim for damages and attorney fees.  People throw out the idea of suing someone as a threat all the time.  I'm a paralegal, I see it all the time.  Many lay people don't get the complexities, and therefor the expense, of filing a lawsuit.  Anyone with a filing fee can initiate one, but only a small portion end up at trial because of the cost.

I'm wish I knew what EC thought they'd get out of this. And how on earth they sold it to their lawyer.