How to start taking ownership of your stolen words

 

DISCLAIMER:  I am not a lawyer and the following should not be taken as nor substituted for professional legal advice.  This is only a compilation of information that is readily available online.
 
If you think someone is publishing your work without your permission, there are steps you can take to protect yourself before -- but not instead of -- going to a lawyer. 

If the infringing work has been published on Amazon by the Kindle Direct Publishing program (KDP), you can notify Amazon directly. 

On the book's Kindle listing page, all the way down at the bottom, past the reviews and everything else, is a box with four Feedback options.

The fourth option is "Do you believe this item violates a copyright?"  If you believe YOUR work has been infringed, click here for additional information.  Remember:  You cannot report a violation of anyone else's copyright, only your own.  And no one else can report a violation of your copyright;  you must do it yourself.

Clicking on the link will take you to the page on Amazon's Terms of Service with the information on reporting a copyright violation. 

In addition to the physical address for mailing notification, there is an email address:

copyright@Amazon.com

The sooner you initiate the reporting, the sooner the infringing work can be removed from the Amazon site.

Be prepared to provide evidence of your ownership of your words.  Did you write someone an email and they published it without your knowledge?  That's infringement; you may need to provide a copy of the email.  Did someone copy a page from your blog and publish it on KDP without your permission?  That's infringement; provide Amazon with a link to your blogpost.

If you gave someone verbal permission to use your work but there is no written evidence of that consent, then there is no valid contract and they have no legal right to publish your work.  That is infringement.

If you have any evidence of written permission, even if it is just an email to the person saying "Yes, feel free to use my story in your collection," that may not be sufficient legal standing for the person to continue to publish your work.  If the infringer is offering the work for sale, there should (and in some cases must )  be a written contract that spells out all the specific details of how the work is going to be used, where it is going to be published, how the copyright holder will be compensated, and what derivative rights are involved.

One of the downsides of instant digital publishing is that many people are using this marvelous technology without understanding the fine legal points of what it means to put something into the public marketplace.  Just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's free for the taking and publishing.  Just because there's an informal agreement doesn't mean that agreement will hold up in a court of law.

And speaking of courts of law, the laws pertaining to copyright differ from one country to another.  Amazon is a U.S. company, but it operates and sells in many countries and its KDP program likewise crosses many international boundaries.  You absolutely must get professional legal advice regarding any further steps, but contacting Amazon/KDP immediately is one step you can take on your own.

A word to the why's -- A rant with no links

So I was sitting there in the coffee shop this morning, composing another writing lesson, and a friend asked me why I was doing it.  She's not a writer, but her comment echoed an often-voiced sentiment from my days in RWA.

"Isn't that like training your competition?" she asked.

Well yes, and no.

Let me backtrack a bit.  During my dozen years or so of active RWA membership, I gave my share of time and energy to helping the unpublished become published.  I gave workshops.  I belonged to several critique groups in which I was the only published writer.  I judged manuscripts in contests open only to the unpublished.  I worked with several writers on their contest entries, finding the tiny flaws that might have kept them from winning, and two authors who followed my advice not only won Golden Heart awards but ended up selling those books to print publishers.

Could I have spent my time and energy more profitably on my own writing?  Probably.  But part of the business of writing is cultivating an audience and a market.  I believed wholeheartedly that by encouraging other writers I was creating good will with them, with their friends, with their eventual readers, and so on.  Call me naive and I won't disagree:  A few of the authors to whom I gave more than I should have ended up stabbing me in the back.  I won't name them; they know who they are.

But that never really diminished the teacher/helper in me.  Even though yes, I knew all along that in the day when print publishing was the only viable game in town, I was indeed training my competition, I still did it.  And most of the time I enjoyed it and took great satisfaction in seeing their triumphs.

As I wrote in an early blogpost, some of the authors whose manuscripts I judged did not take my advice and those books never sold.  Instead, they have ended up on Amazon (and probably elsewhere) as self-published e-books or as print-on-demand trade paperbacks.  They've sold a few copies, but that's about it.

My intention is not to give you the impression I think I'm an infallible judge or editor;  I know damn well I'm not.  As has been said often enough here and elsewhere, even the editors at the big traditional publishing houses make mistakes all the time, either passing up books that eventually become best sellers for another publisher or paying big bucks for and then promoting the hell out of duds.

But because of the major shift in the book industry to digital publishing the past few years, many books are coming on the market that would never have reached traditional publication.  The reasons these books failed to find publishers are numerous -- weak stories, bad writing, unlikable characters, whatever -- but they were always competition for those of us writers who weren't locked into secure and lucrative contracts.  We always had to take our chances with the rest of the manuscripts in the slush pile.  Having an agent or having even a minimal track record helped a little, but it didn't necessarily give us an advantage.  In fact, having a record of publishing with less than stellar sales numbers could be a distinct disadvantage.

So now we're all competing against each other on a sort of level playing field.  Why would I want to help my competition?

Well, because we're all up against another competitor, one who has a lot more clout than we do:  The Traditional NYC Publishing Houses.

The traditional houses have the editors, the proofreaders, the formatters, the artists.  They have EVERYTHING, and of course they extract a price for it.  Amazon pays 70% royalties, with no advance; a traditional publisher pays 10% royalties and maybe gives $2,500 advance.  Of course, traditional publishers charge readers $7.99 and up for a paperback, and there's often little to no discount for the digital edition.  The paperback can be traded or sold; the digital version can maybe be lent once -- unless of course the buyer wants to (illegally) strip the DRM and convert the digital file to something transferable.  A self-published e-book frequently runs $2.99 or less, and many can be picked up for free by the careful shopper.

The complaints from readers, as voiced in reviews, are that self-published books just don't measure up to the quality of traditionally published books (TPBs).  Stories are weaker, formatting for e-publication is often messed up, typographical errors abound, and on and on and on.  The mechanical problems of grammar, punctuation, spelling and so on are usually non-existent in TPBs simply because there are enough editors and others to go over the manuscript prior to publication.  If the SPA can't afford to have her book professionally edited and professionally proofread and professionally formatted, those errors are going to slip through.  And if she herself isn't a good enough writer, a good enough editor, a good enough proofreader, a good enough formatter, those errors are going to be numerous.

The big question, then, becomes whether or not the reader should be obligated to accept without complaint the lower quality on the self-published book.

Read that last sentence again:

The big question, then, becomes whether or not the reader should be obligated to accept without complaint the lower quality on the self-published book.

The authors who end up having public tantrums because someone dared to give their book a bad review are almost always self-published.  Just Google "author meltdown" if you don't already know enough about the subject.  And most of the meltdowns are precipitated by bad reviews.  One star on Amazon.  Criticism of anything about the book, whether it's the author's poor grammatical skills, a borrowed plotline, inaccurate research, whatevah.

And all too often these melting authors defend themselves by castigating the readers for not giving them and their books a pass because they're self-published and self-published books shouldn't be held to the same standards.

In other words, a reader who downloads a self-published book should not only expect lower quality but should accept it as is and not complain about any flaws.  The fact that the author wrote the book and had the courage to self-publish it (but not the courage to withstand any criticism at all) is supposed to be enough.  Bad grammar?  Pay no attention to it, Gentle Reader.  Misspellings galore?  Ignore them, Gentle Reader.  Can't make heads or tails of the syntax?  Pretend you can, Gentle Reader.

But the readers aren't so gentle, and they aren't buying -- in the figurative sense, more than the literal. 
Many readers and reviewers have adopted a "Do Not Read" attitude toward self-published books.  They've become so disgusted with the lack of quality assurance that they just won't waste their time on the SPBs at all any more.  These are readers who are knowledgeable enough to check the identity of the "publisher" on the book's listing before they buy it.  Or maybe they read the free sample to determine if there's even a chance that the rest of the book will be readable.  But more and more often there are comments on blogs and discussion boards and even on the Amazon discussions that readers simply will not bother with self-published books.

Obviously, if a well-known but traditionally published author moves into self-publishing, she has a certain amount of name recognition and can build on that.  But as publishers hold onto digital rights -- and pay diddly in royalties to the authors -- and authors are emotionally bullied into continuing with their traditional publishers, self-publishing becomes more and more of a wasteland.  That means even the traditionally published authors are losing out.

Yes, you traditionally published authors, the bad SPBs out there are hurting you. 

The only way to break the chains of literary serfdom is to make self-publishing truly viable.  That means the authors who are taking that route, myself included, absolutely must put out a quality product.  No more making excuses.  No more hiding behind lean budgets. 

And no more tantrums when a reader or reviewer points out "The book is garbage.  It's unreadable tripe.  The author can't spell, the heroine is a doormat and the hero is a dunce, and there were no zippers in Regency ballgowns."  Any author who engages in this sort of pathetic, infantile behavior is not worth of the title.  Go away.  Grow up.  You're not the "special snowflake" you think you are.  You're a fraud and a phony. 

No more paid shill reviews, no more friends and family and sock puppet reviews.  No more fan-girl attacks on the truth-tellers.  No more take-downs of legitimate websites, no "Stop the Bullies!" campaigns.  The people who are telling you your book is crap are only telling you what you already know:  If you're defending it on the basis that it shouldn't be compared to "quality" writing because self-publishing means it's of lesser quality, then you're admitting you know it's crap and should just smile and say to the reviewer, "I appreciate that you recognized my work for what I intended it to be. Thank  you so very much."  And then SHUT UP.

And that's why I'm offering my little free lessons on how to write.  Some writers may pay attention.  They'll have just the slightest bit of advantage over those who don't.  And if all of us build on that advantage, then maybe, just maybe, we can swing the royalty pendulum more our way.

Whether we sell it for $2.99 or $9.99 or give it away free, we need to make it the very very best we can.  We need to go back to the tried-and-true techniques of the critique group and critique partner, the qualified editor and proofreader, the professional cover art designer.  We need to hone our skills with grammar and syntax.  We need to make sure our digital books are as perfectly formatted as they can possibly be.  Merely uploading a Word .doc file isn't enough. 

So to answer my friend at the coffee shop, I'm doing this to help other writers because I firmly believe it helps me, too.

A word to the not-so-wise: CHILL!

The self-published author meltdowns continue unabated.  People who are well past the age of majority are behaving like spoiled three-year-olds.  And I don't think any of them have a clue as to how embarrassing their behavior is.

I, quite frankly, am embarrassed by them.  I, too, am a self-published author, and there are hundreds of others who are not behaving like rotten children who have never been disciplined in their lives.

Whether the issue these jerks are having their tantrums over is bad reviews or legitimate e-book lending sites, they are so completely out of any boundaries of professionalism that they make me despair that authors will never get free of the vampire parasite claws of the traditional publishers.

I don't need to list them, either by name or tantrum or website.  You probably already know who they are anyway.  What I'm here to ask is that you readers not tar all of us self-publishing authors with the well-deserved "I'm NEVER buying another book of hers!" brush.

There may be a dozen or two dozen or even a hundred of these authors.  At the first sign of criticism, they lash out with all the fury of a child deprived of a favorite toy.  They may have recruited friends and family members to post gushing reviews and feel entitled to every single one of those Amazon five-star reviews even when they know the opinions of friends and family members are not unbiased.  But along comes a reader who has poured her time and money into reading the book and is then disappointed with it, a truly unbiased critic, and she is attacked by these authors, their friends, their fans.

So they set up websites devoted to further lashing out at the critics.  They go way beyond anything any other professional  would do in any other profession.  They threaten and intimidate and refuse to address any of the issues brought up by the critics.

Maybe the book is badly written.  Maybe the research is inadequate.  Maybe the typos outnumber the lines.  It doesn't make any difference:  If the reader is disappointed, she is entitled to her opinion and the author is NOT entitled to go after her.

Get that?  The author put that work out there.  (Yes, I'm repeating earlier admonitions.)  The author said, in effect, "Here is my product.  I'm done with it.   This is the very best I can do and because of the respect I have for my readers, for the people who are investing time and money in anticipation of top quality entertainment, I ask nothing more of you than that.  I do not require you to make excuses for me or correct my mistakes.  That is not your job; it is mine and you have every right to expect that I've done it before you ever open the file to read."

It is also our job as digital self-publishers to read and understand and abide by our contracts.  Yes, authors, when you upload your MSWord file to Kindle or PubIt or whatever, you are entering into a contract, a legally binding contract, with the company that's going to be selling your work.  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords:  They all require you to affirm that you have read and understood and will abide by their Terms of Service before you upload your file.  You don't get to opt out of clauses you don't like, and you have no ethical or moral right to take out your frustration on any innocent party if it turns out you didn't read, didn't understand, and/or are not willing to abide by those terms, all of those terms.

There is a list posted on the Amazon "Badly Behaving Authors" discussion thread of authors who have participated in the destruction of an e-book lending site.  I'm happy to say I recognized none of the names on that list, which means I have never bought any of their books.  Needless to say, I won't buy any in the future.  And there are probably other readers who won't, because the word gets around the Internet very, very quickly.  And as many have said, the Internet has a very short attention span, but a very, very, very long memory.  In other words, peopleare not going to forget this kind of bad behavior.

As writers, our job is to write; as self-publishing authors, our job is to put a professionally produced product in the market place for our readers to buy.

It is not our job to challenge readers, to correct them, to chastise them, to attack them, to "out" them.  Never, never, never.

So though I doubt any of the badly behaving authors will ever venture to this blog, perhaps some who do chance by here will tell their friends and colleagues:  The most unprofessional thing any author, but especially the self-publishing author, can do is alienate the very people she expects to buy her book.  the customer is always right, even when she's wrong. 

Words in fading echoes

How will I ever find time for my day job?

The whole Dorchester thing sent me into my archives yesterday, but I didn't immediately find what I was looking for, so this morning I hauled out the big fat three-ring binder with all my PANdora's Box newsletters.

History, because I was there:  The Published Authors' Network of RWA was born at a Sunday morning meeting at the 1989 National Conference in Boston.  Because of the RWA bureaucracy, the actual development of PAN into a working "network" took some time, so Volume 1 Number 1 of the PAN newsletter, aka The Box, wasn't published until almost three years later, in April 1992.  As I read through it almost exactly 20 years later I am amazed and horrified at how many issues that were raised in those early editions are still on the table, still unresolved, still causing grief for writers TWO DECADES LATER.

I attended the 1992 National Conference in Chicago that summer, about which Margaret Brownley wrote in the PANdora's Extra post-conference edition, "I was absolutely overwhelmed by PAN's reception in Chicago.  Whenever I felt my body or spirit lag (from lack of sleep), someone choose[sic] that particular moment to say something wonderful about PANdora's Box or PAN.  I honestly felt I could have flown home without a plane (and given the delay of my flight, I would probably have made better time)."

PAN was so desperately needed and so enthusiastically welcomed and supported by (most of) the published authors in RWA, myself included.  Margaret should not have been surprised.

But in that same conference extra edition of The Box, on page 3, were some questions and answers from PAN workshops at the Chicago conference, and one of them caught my eye this morning as I began to stroll through the files, because at some time or other (probably around 2000 when I was writing my honors thesis on romance fiction) I had highlighted this particular question:

What clauses should a writer be especially wary of in a contract?

The agents on our panel advised writers to watch out for the option clause.  Make sure it is as unconfining as possible.  Also, pay strict attention to the amount of money held against reserves.  Make sure you understand how much money will be held and for how long.

Another potential trap is the clause that requires you to return your advance should the publisher reject the finished product.  Richard Curtis stated that should a publisher reject a finished manuscript, the advance should be considered a loss, not a loan to be repaid.

Nothing about royalties on "special sales" or book clubs, even though other issues related to subscription sales and the resultant low royalty rates were brought up in almost every edition of The Box.  Nothing about reversion of rights, even though that had been specifically discussed in a PAN meeting with Harlequin and reported on in that same conference extra edition.  Nothing about sales of subsidiary rights, especially electronic rights, even though by 1992 online communities were already developing and contracts had been written with hints of electronic rights as early as my 1984 contract with Dorchester.

And on the back page of The Box was this:

PAN Panel first of its kind

Five organizations were represented on the panel of professional writing groups.  Participants included Bill Fawcett, Science Fiction Writers of America; Virginia McCullough, National Writers Union; Carla Neggers, Novelists Inc.; Mark Zubro, Sisters in Crime; Linda Cajio, Romance Writers of America.

A lot of fascinating information was exchanged during this one hour panel.  Our only wish is that we had allowed more time.

Many of the problems facing RWA are of universal concern to all writers.  All agreed that royalty statments are a mess.  "Math errors are one of the biggest problems.  Bantam's bookkeeping is abysmal, Baen Books the most comprehensive."

The return/reserve policy is of major concern. Avon's policy of doubling the reserves against sell-throughs on the next book was mentioned.  "The better an author does, the higher the reserves."  (PAN is checking this out.)

Most writers' groups support random audits.  Four years ago, SFWA conducted a mass audit of Simon and Schuster for 200 authors.

SFWA sees audits as preventative medicine.  But it also has had great success in conducting campagns against unfair practices by naming names in their newsletter. (SFWA seemed by far, to be the most fearless and perhaps most successful of the groups in getting changes.  Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here.)

All in all, a fascinating discussion. Be watching for more panels of this nature in the future.

By October 1992, the issue of book club royalties was addressed, again, and The Box reported pretty much what I wrote in yesterday's blog: 

The cut-rate royalty paid to Harlequin and Silhouette authors on book club sales was among issues RWA representatives discussed with the publishers at a special meeting during the Chicago conference. The publishers maintained that they paid a lower royalty on book club sales because they aren't making any money on such sales.

It's more expensive to sell a book through mail order than through retailers, publishers said.  They also said mail order customers who don't pay their bills eat into the money the publishers should be making on book club sales.

But they continue to sell books through the mail.  One reason is that the publishers believe many readers cancel their subscriptions to the book clubs and continue to buy the books in stores.

I can't easily research the past 14 years of RWA history and what, if anything, the romance writer's professional organization has done in the way of advocacy for the rights and benefits of the writer or how much RWA has protected the privileges of the publishers, the agents, and yes, the unpublished writers who still make up the vast majority of RWA membership.  But to judge by what's going on with romance writing, with royalties on digital editions and reversion of rights and all the rest, RWA has been an epic fail.

What lies behind the words?

Following is the entire text of the email I received this morning from Dorchester Publishing:

Ms. Hilton,

The Garfunkel, Wild, Travis Law firm and OEM Capital Corp. forwarded me your letter of reversion dated March 10, 2012. I’ve noted your request for the rights to your title. Per our protocol, once we receive your request it enters the reversion review process, as reversions are not a unilateral decision. Dorchester is currently in negotiations of a sale. I've attached an announcement from our C.E.O. about new developments in the company. When I spoke to the agency brokering the sale of Dorchester, I was informed that there are quality companies bidding for Dorchester, and once they close that deal there will be an auction held 3 weeks after that. After the auction, the buyer has 30 days to speak and negotiate with authors before closing. The new buyers will negotiate directly with the author and agent about arrears. Any author that still wants to revert, can, at that time. I'll keep you posted with any more updates I receive.

Best,

Samantha Hazell
Contract & Rights Assistant
Production Assistant
Dorchester Publishing
105 East 34th Street, Box 175
New York, NY 10016

Putting a price on the words

There are writers who write for themselves and no one  else.  I have always been an advocate of writing as a hobby.  There is no shame in being a hobbyist painter or sculptor or composer or actor or architect.  Who among us hasn't fulfilled a fantasy operatic career in the shower?  Everyone has a poem or two in their murky past, scribbled in the back of a library book or on a page torn out of a spiral notebook. 

Whose refrigerator hasn't been at one time or another been adorned with the artwork of juvenile Titians or Picassos? 

But there is a big difference, I think, between writing solely for oneself and writing for anyone, anyone else at all.  Once the writer tells someone else that she is writing -- or has written -- there's a sharing of writing as a concept even if not as a specific work.  The implied invitation has been extended to "Ask me what I've written; ask me about it," and thus the writing is no longer solely for the writer.

At that point, of course, the old adage about writing and/or sex comes into play:  First you do it for fun, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money.  Except that with writing -- and maybe with sex, too -- the dividing line between doing it for fun and doing it for money becomes very blurred.

There are a bunch of items in the current writing blogosphere that illustrate this. 

One is the on-going and multi-faceted discussion regarding 50 Shades of Grey and its sequels:  Is it fan fiction or not?  Is it plagiarized or not?  Is it ethical for an author of admitted fan fiction to then publish it for profit?

Another is the on-going issue regarding so-called Agency pricing of e-books from the Big 5 publishers:  Who benefits?  Authors?  Readers?  Publishers?  E-distributors?

Third is the dissolution-in-progress of Dorchester Publishing, in which a whole bunch of money is owed to authors, distributors, maybe even printers, and in which the major asset remaining in Dorchester's inventory is the contracts it holds for the books it's not paying royalties on.

Obviously, it's the third item that affects me personally, so I'll address the first two first.

I haven't read 50 Shades of Grey and I'm not likely to.  Nor have I read any of the Twilight books or seen the television series.  It's not my thing.  But the issue of creativity and ownership of artistic expression is one that impacts virtually every author.  If there is no protection of copyright for authors of original fiction, there is no way for authors -- or those greedy bastards the publishers -- to make money.  Even so, I think what bothers me personally more than anything is the way the popularity of SoG and the controversey over its roots in fan fic is overshadowing any potential discussion about romance and feminism, a discussion that is long overdue.

The accusations of price fixing on the Big Five conglomerate publishers as well as Apple also have far reaching potential implications for writers.  Because the charges have been leveled by the US Department of Justice, rather than by an individual or group of individuals who have been harmed by the practice, I would guess -- because I'm not a lawyer -- that no damages will be forthcoming to the writers and/or the readers.  And should the P&A (Publishers and Apple) be found guilty, and fines that are imposed would only be passed along one way or another in the form of higher prices to the readers, and probably through whatever means the publishers can come up with to diminish payment of royalties to the authors.  Ultimately, of course, the P&A will not be harmed financially.

To me, this is just another indication of why authors need to find ways to publish without publishers.  The publishers will always find a way to insulate themselves from any harm, and that means getting either the readers or the writers to pay for it.

Which of course brings me back to Dorchester.

Agent Kristin Nelson on her blog PubRants posts the letter she received from Dorchester announcing the latest changes to their operation.  Having divested themselves (and just who "they" are is another question) of Dorchester Media LLC, Dorchester Publishing is now ensconced in new digs at 105 E. 34th Street, Box 175, New York NY 10016.   Box 175???

Yeah, Box 175 at the UPS Store at 105 E. 34th Street.  Seriously.  Dorchester Publishing, aka Leisure Books, is now, according to the letter from their president, a "virtual" publisher operating out of a mailbox at the UPS Store.

What does this mean for the people to whom Dorchester owes money?  Does it mean the sale of Dorchester Media, to a mysterious entity hiding behind the name "FAA Investors LLC," provided funds to pay owner John Backe for his "loan" to Dorchester?  Let's put him aside -- I always get suspicious about people who lend money to themselves -- and look at the rest of the Dorchester financial picture.

We know they owe back royalties to authors.  How much?  Who knows?  Is RWA doing an audit?  Is SFWA doing an audit?  Is NINC doing an audit?  Has any author demanded an audit per terms of their contract?

How much does Dorchester owe to printers, to cover artists, to distributors?  How much do they owe in back rent?  What is the total financial picture of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc?

If they're operating as a "virtual" publisher, with staff -- what staff? -- working from home, there are no physical assets beyond maybe a few computers, printers, and maybe a copier or two.  The only asset they have is the accumulated inventory of book contracts, the ones they haven't either reverted the rights to the authors or sold off to other publishers.  If they've already sold off the big names -- for which, one presumes, they got some big bucks -- what's left?  And who would buy those contracts?

And what baggage would come with those purchases?  Would the acquiring publisher be on the hook for any royalties still in arrears?  Would the sale of those assets then allow Dorchester Publishing to file for bankruptcy and clear the books of its debts, or would the court be able to clawback those sales the way they would in a personal bankruptcy?

We know John Backe is filthy rich and could personally probably pay off the debts of the company he owns.  The employees -- editors, bookkeepers, sales people, etc. -- apparently have been paid for at least most of the time they've been on the Dorchester payroll, which is more than a lot of the authors can say.

Dorchester still holds a contract on one of my books, and I've sent them a letter via certified mail demanding reversion of the rights in that contract.  They can, of course, refuse to revert the rights but unless they do something to make the book available to readers, even something as slimy as what Pocket Books did to me, the rights revert.  And I can tell you this, right now:  If Dorchester does not revert the rights to me, if they go ahead and make the book "available" in any form whatsoever, they or their licensee WILL pay me for it, or I will sue them.  That book earned out its pathetic advance more than 20 years ago.  And if my threat of a lawsuit pushes them into bankruptcy, so be it.  Then I will get my rights back.

Because the price on the words is my price, the price I set, and the price is ownership.