Tensions Between Authors' Contracts for Book Publishing and Film Production Rights

Before these developments, literary publishing agreements focused on the publication of books in print form and motion picture agreements focused on the exploitation of audiovisual works. Film agreements would tread lightly in the domain of print publication rights, such as by providing that the producer could use up to 7,500 words of text from the underlying work for advertising, promotion and publicity purposes. (This is not to say that producers did not request rights to publish screenplays and certain types of “making of” books, but the intensity of these demands was not particularly great.) Publishing agreements generally stayed out of the audiovisual domain.

Now, motion picture companies trying to derive new sources of revenue from the films they make want to complement film rights with wider literary publishing rights. This is especially the case with “franchise” or “tent-pole” films that not only tend toward higher budgets ' which raise the bar on recoupment of production and marketing costs ' but also lend themselves to ancillary exploitation by a film studio in print and electronic book media that include images from the films.