Publishing

Our Publishing Group is well known not only for its legal expertise, but also for helping clients exploit ancillary revenue opportunities in nontraditional formats. We are at the forefront of the development and defense of digital rights, and the ever-evolving areas of parody, fair use, and other issues at the intersection of the First Amendment and Copyright law.

CLIENTS

We represent best-selling authors, award-winning journalists and bloggers, and influential magazine, newspaper, online, and fiction and academic book publishers. We also work with literary agents, book packagers, editors, and other individual publishing executives.

CLIENT BENEFITS

Publishing Agreements

We negotiate publishing agreements with all the major American book publishers and many foreign publishers.

eBooks

We are actively advising publishing clients in eBook and multimedia ventures, helping evolve the new agreements and licenses that properly address ownership, payment, credits, approvals, subsidiary rights, and other critical matters.

Ancillary Revenue

We negotiate a wide range of ancillary rights agreements to lock in innovative revenue streams, including book-to-movie, book-to-video, book-to-audio, book-to-game, and other licensing and merchandising opportunities.

Pre-publication Review

We review manuscripts for libel and other potential claims, and recommend edits that reduce or eliminate risk.

Strategy

We offer strategic counseling to authors of fiction and nonfiction works on the best ways to exploit the rights they retain and control including exercising termination rights under US Copyright Law. 

Libel and IP Defense

We defend libel and right of publicity claims, and have had great success disposing of these suits efficiently and economically; we also protect copyrights, trademarks, and other author-brand assets against infringement and unfair competition.

Brand Enhancement

We identify opportunities for best-selling authors to enhance their brands, and help structure entrepreneurial joint ventures and other business arrangements.

Legal Compliance

We help clients navigate U.S. and international publishing laws -- including advertising and marketing regulations.

Executive Compensation

We use our relationships and knowledge of business practices to negotiate advantageous executive employment agreements.

M&A

We negotiate and structure publishing M&A deals.

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

Our attorneys participate in many of the major industry trade associations, including the Association of American Publishers, the Magazine Publishers of America, the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., the Women’s National Book Association, Women in Publishing, the New York City Bar (Communications, and Copyright and Literary Property Committees), the ABA Section on Patent, Trademark, and Copyright law, and the International Trademark Association.