WSMB attorneys have extensive experience in all areas of the law related to publishing. Our attorneys have negotiated and drafted book publishing and related agreements on behalf of authors and publishers, prepared contribution agreements, advised on copyrights and related permissions, and performed prepublication clearance reviews of books. We are intimately familiar with the laws of defamation and privacy and rights of publicity that often arise in the publishing context. As a result of our substantial and varied backgrounds, we are familiar with the issues that arise in the traditional publishing world, and can also bring a cutting-edge eye to the new issues facing the industry in the digital age. Some representative work includes:

• Negotiated book publishing agreement and prepared contribution and related agreements for "Smithsonian Baseball: Inside the World's Private Collections" by Stephen T. Wong (HarperCollins 2005);
• Negotiated book publishing agreement and advised on copyright, permissions, and related issues with respect to "The Country Houses of David Adler" (W.W. Norton & Company 2001) and "Francis Elkins: Interior Design" (W.W. Norton & Company 2005) by Stephen M. Salny;
• Negotiated two-book publishing agreement with major trade publisher on behalf of prominent author/illustrator;
  Negotiated settlement of dispute among co-authors of health/nutrition book including resolution of issues in the publishing agreement related to client's right to sell the book over the Internet;
• Drafted collaboration agreements between authors and ghostwriters of business and medical books;
• Conducted prepublication reviews of  books on various subjects for trade publishers;
• Advised publisher about securing reversion of rights in work that it wanted to publish, from the original publisher;
• Drafted and negotiated joint venture agreement for publication of new design magazine, Array (www.arrayny.com), based on publisher's original business model;
• Represented author in dispute with publisher, resulting in rescission of purported termination of publishing agreement;
• Prepared author contribution agreements for various publications with different kinds of author arrangements and relationships.