Attorneys for Harlequin have filed a motion to dismiss the class action lawsuit filed this summer by three authors who charged that they had not received full royalties on e-books for works that were originally signed between 1990 and 2004. The motion, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, argues that the authors were paid for the sale of the digital editions of their work precisely in the manner laid out in their publishing agreements.
At issue is the contention that rather than receiving a 50% royalty on the net receipts of the e-books, authors received 3% to 4% of the cover price, a figure that was determined after Harlequin created a licensing agreement with Harlequin Books S.A. and Harlequin Enterprises B.V. Under the agreement, Harlequin based the author royalty on the amount it received on the sale of the license a move that lowered the royalty payout, the authors charged.
