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Ken Kesey vs. Kirk
Douglas
currently being updated
sorry for the inconvenience
Ken Kesey, author of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, did the same thing with his
copyright to that novel that Hemingway did with the copyright to
The Sun Also Rises. Kesey sold it.
He didn't sell his
copyright to a publisher, though. He sold it to an actor. Kirk
Douglas. Who planned to make it into a movie.
Douglas paid a hefty
amount of money for the book's copyright — somewhere between
$400,00 and $500,000 in the 1950s — but nothing ever happened
with the film process. Technically, then, since the film hadn't
been made and Kesey had been paid for the book, Kesey was the
clear "winner" in that situation.
Twenty years after Kirk
Douglas bought the book and its copyright, however, he gave the
book to his son Michael, who produced and made the movie.
The movie went on to
become a major hit, winning several Oscars®
and selling millions of books
(through the movie tie-in).
Kesey was stunned.
Though Kesey had already
been paid a tremendous amount for the book when he sold it to
Douglas, Kesey wasn't getting any of the money generated from
the success of the film and the additional book sales it was
causing.
Though he had sold the
copyright (and thus, the ownership) of the book, Kesey sued Kirk
Douglas for what Kesey believed was his fair share of the money
as the author of the book upon which the movie was based.
Kesey lost.
Once again, judges
carefully examined the contract wherein Kesey sold the
copyright/ownership of his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest to Kirk Douglas. They ruled the same way as the judges
did in Hemingway's case against Scribner's.
There was no evidence of
authorial duress, no evidence of coercion, abundantly clear and
unambiguous contract language, a substantially hefty purchase
price, and, at the bottom, Ken Kesey's very clear signature.
Ken Kesey may or may not
have known about what happened when Hemingway sued Scribner's,
but Kesey learned the same lesson that Hemingway had learned
years before:
If
you sell your copyright,
the book no longer belongs to you,
and any monies made from that book do not belong to you.
RockWay Press, founded by an author, knows how
important it is for an artist to retain ownership of his creation.
Therefore, RockWay never even asks for an author's copyright. All
copyrights of the books that RockWay Press publishes remain the
property of the author, the creator and owner of the book. \
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