Publishers will publish retellings of books banned in Russia
The Russian publishing houses “Eksmo-AST” and Smart Reading will start publishing sammaras – retellings without direct citation – of foreign works prohibited for sale in Russia in order to bypass the sanctions. This is reported by Kommersant.
Both publishing houses plan to release the memoirs of Prince Harry Spare (“Spare”) in this format already in February. The book was released abroad on January 10.
As Yevgeny Kapyev, general director of “Exmo” told the publication, the key ideas of the book will be reflected in the summary without using excerpts from it. According to him, the author of Sammara read the book in English and translated it in her own language. Publishers in this case rely on the law on citation, noted Kapiev.
In “Exmo-AST” they consider the project as “a startup that will help to partially solve the problem of availability of non-fiction novelties, and as an alternative to a compulsory license.” In particular, they are planning to release Jen Sincero’s book “No Noy” using the same mechanism, the rights to which expired last spring and have not been renewed.
The chief editor of Smart Reading Mariya Kopachevskaya clarified that the company has been specializing in the sammara format for ten years, but now it has become especially relevant.
At the same time, not all Russian publishers are ready to use this mechanism: “It is possible that official retelling without permission does not violate the law, but purely humanely, it should not be done that way,” says Felix Sandalov, editor-in-chief of the Individuum publishing house.
Another interlocutor of the publication among the publishers considers the release of books in retelling as a risk for the entire market. According to him, “to allow piracy in one form or another – and the Sammara format can be considered veiled piracy – means to throw the Russian market of legal content back several years”, quotes the publisher of Kommersant.
Lawyers, in turn, warn about the risk of being charged if the retelling turns out to be close to the text of the original. The maximum amount of compensation for illegal use of rights is twice the value of the sold books.
Against the backdrop of Russia’s war against Ukraine, many foreign publishers, including Penguin Random House, which owns the rights to Prince Harry’s memoirs, have stopped working with Russian publishers.
