Penguin Win Rights to Steinbeck’s Books
Cup of Gold: Publisher wins rights battle over Steinbeck books
Martha Graybow, National Post
Published: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
A U.S. court was wrong to award rights to some of John Steinbeck’s best-known novels, including “The Grapes of Wrath,” to his son and granddaughter, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
The appeals court said copyrights to the author’s early works should belong to publisher Penguin Group, a unit of Pearson Plc. The case has been seen as having ramifications for heirs of other artists seeking to control future use of famous works.
Other Steinbeck works affected by the ruling include “Of Mice and Men,” “Tortilla Flat,” and the author’s first published novel, “Cup of Gold.”
Steinbeck, who set many of his books in his native California, received both a Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1968.
Read more here.
