Recently, Canadian female writer Alice Munro, eighty-two years old, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in literature. With presses crazy to publish her works and setting off a "Munro boom", Munro's works triggered a press right war in China. However, Munro was not so popular in China before the prize. Up to now, Escape is her only short story collection published in Chinese mainland, and many readers could not read the book due to stock out. After the prize, Yilin Press and Jiangsu People's Publishing Ltd. respectively announced the acquisition of the press right of Munro's six books in China. The Thinkingdom House, publisher of the Escape, printed another 400,000 copies. Hence, the acquisition of the press right of Munro's works attracts public attention.

Three presses claimed the press right

On October 10, Yilin Press announced that it had acquired the press right of Munro's seven works in China, including Dance of the Happy Shades, Hateship  Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage, Too Much Happiness, Lives of Girls and Women, Open Secrets Stories, The Love of a Good Woman, The Progress of Love. Later, the Jiangsu People's Publishing Ltd. announced on its official microblog that it owned the press right of the aforementioned books except the Open Secrets Stories. It is known that Yilin Press has initiated contact  Munro's copyright agents since last year and finally acquired the press right of the seven works this year. At the same time, Jiang Weiguo, editor of Jiangsu People's Publishing Ltd. who signed the press right contract with Munro's copyright agents, said the deadline of some contracts was to 2013 and some to 2014.

In 2009, the Thinkingdom House published Escape. At the same time, Yilin Press will first publish the book Open Secrets Stories, which will be sold at the end of October.

Caution is needed in signing contracts

As to the disputes over the press right between Yilin Press and Jiangsu People's Publishing Ltd., an anonymous insider told to the jounalist that it was probably due to the overlap of the date of the two contracts if both of them were valid. That is to say, the copyright owner signed a contract with another press before the expiration of the former. So it is needed to figure out the expiration of the contract with Jiangsu People's Publishing Ltd. and the validity of the contract with Yilin Press. Generally, contracts are signed by three parts, the two publishers and the copyright agents. The publisher couldn't print books when the contract is expired, but it could sell the stocks at a time. Hence, the dispute is common. 

Lu Weimin, a principal of Tsinghua University Press, said that if there was an   overlap of date in the two contracts and Yilin Press published the books before the validity of the contract, then Yilin Press constituted infringement. If the contracts were both exclusive licenses and the copyright owner caused the overlap, then the copyright owner should assume the responsibility. He said the following should be noted in signing contracts, "Firstly, to determine the ownership of the copyright of the work and figure out whether it belongs to the author or the press. Secondly, to pay attention to the contract terms to define whether it is an exclusive license or not. If it is a non-exclusive license, it means the copyright owner could give licenses to many presses at a time. Additionally, one should also pay attention to the duration of the contract in a bid to avoid overlaps, which may involve issues such as the right to use pictures, etc.."

(China IP News)