TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Authors Guild attacks Smell of Books; Dear Author responds

By Paul Biba

An organization calling itself “Authors Guild” has demanded that the Smell of Books line be removed from the market. Here is an excerpt from their commmunication:

While the Authors Guild supports efforts to improve the digital reading experience, we believe this product represents a significant threat to the development of aroma rights, and as such, will adversely impact the rights of our members.

Dear Author has analyzed the letter and responded:

Authors Guild is determined to further alienate ebook readers with its latest cease and desist order. There is a new startup company called DuroSport that is hawking a “Smell of Book” product. I suppose it is to address those who fetishize the smell of books and can’t give up paper books for digital copies because of the lack of real book odor. There was another company a while back that tried to offer scratch and sniff stickers to place on your ebook reader.

Both ideas are somewhat suspect but the mere saleability of an idea shouldn’t prevent reader concern over this issue. The Authors Guild is attempting to broaden the copyright to include rights that were never conceived to be considered part of the bundle of rights granted by the Copyright Act of 1976 or any of its subsequent modifications. Indeed, the Authors Guild torturous interpretation of the rule to include olfactory rights would be an impossible stretching of Copyright that not even JK Rowling’s lawyers would have the chutzpah to claim.

Given the importance of this matter the full text of the Authors Guild letter is given after the break.

From the DuroSport blog:

To whom it may concern:

The Authors Guild has recently been made aware of a new e-book related product called “Smell of Books”. This product has allegedly been designed to improve the e-book reading experience by simulating the smell of a real book.

While the Authors Guild supports efforts to improve the digital reading experience, we believe this product represents a significant threat to the development of aroma rights, and as such, will adversely impact the rights of our members.

It is important to note that in the digital era, books, and the smell of books, have been decoupled. In the future we expect authors to participate in the development of custom aromas for their books. These olfactory rights constitute a derivative right to be licensed separately. The preservation of these rights is essential as authors explore new markets and distribution channels.

Allowing unauthorized third parties to provide the “scent” for a book substantially changes the underlying work to a degree that infringes upon the author’s copyright, not to mention artistic vision.

Today the Authors Guild is calling on the DuroSport Corporation to remove the Smell of Books product line from the market. Furthermore, we are advising our members to refrain from licensing aroma rights until we have more clarity on this issue.