Judge: Random House Has No Rights to E-Books

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NEW YORK — A federal judge ruled that publishing heavyweight Random House Inc. can’t stop e-book publisher Rosetta Books LLC from selling digital copies of Kurt Vonnegut’s classic “Slaughterhouse-Five” and other older Random House titles over the Internet.

Random House, a unit of Bertelsmann AG, had sued Rosetta Books in February, a day after the start-up publisher began selling about 40 titles online. Random House claimed it owned the rights to e-books, even though electronic books didn’t exist when original contracts with several authors were signed.


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