## Facts

- Victor Seroff contracted in writing with Simon & Schuster, Inc. to write a book about pianist-composer Sergei Rachmaninoff.
- The contract gave Simon & Schuster the right to publish the book in the United States and Canada and also granted “additional” rights, including translation and foreign publication rights, with revenue from the sale of those rights to be split between Seroff and Simon & Schuster.
- The English-language book was published in the United States in 1950 and received favorable reviews.
- After publication, Simon & Schuster, following its usual practice, sent copies to foreign sales agents, including an agent in France.
- Through that French sales agent, Simon & Schuster sold Éditions Robert Laffont (a French publisher) the exclusive right to publish and sell a French-language edition worldwide.
- Laffont hired a translator and published the French edition in 1954, and it also received favorable reviews.
- Seroff, who read French, asserted that the French edition contained serious errors, omissions, and changes and was “a complete distortion [and flagrant falsification]” of his English text, harming his reputation as an author and scholar.
- Seroff complained to Simon & Schuster and provided a written list of claimed mistranslations and distortions.
- Simon & Schuster transmitted Seroff’s complaints to Laffont and offered to contribute a limited amount toward expenses for a Seroff representative to meet with Laffont in France; Seroff’s representative rejected the amount as insufficient.
- Laffont had specialists review the translation and declined to revise it.
- Simon & Schuster offered to assign to Seroff any claim it might have against Laffont so Seroff could proceed directly against the French publisher, but Seroff instead sued Simon & Schuster in New York for libel based on the French edition.
- Simon & Schuster moved to dismiss the complaint.

## Issues

1. Whether Simon & Schuster could be held liable for libel or reputational harm based on alleged distortions in a French translation prepared and published by an independent French publisher to whom Simon & Schuster sold translation rights.
2. Whether the publishing contract (including the shared-revenue provision for foreign rights) imposed on Simon & Schuster a duty to supervise, control, or guarantee the accuracy of the foreign translation.
3. Whether, apart from the contract, the law recognized an author’s enforceable right in the integrity of the work that would make the U.S. publisher responsible for a foreign publisher’s alterations.

## Decision

- The court granted Simon & Schuster’s motion to dismiss and dismissed the complaint.
- The court found no basis to treat the French publisher as Simon & Schuster’s agent for purposes of responsibility for the translation’s content; Laffont functioned as an independent foreign publisher.
- The contract did not require Simon & Schuster to supervise the translation or to ensure that a foreign edition conformed to the English text.
- The author’s objection, if actionable, was directed to conduct of the foreign publisher or translator rather than to Simon & Schuster.
- Simon & Schuster’s efforts to pass along complaints, offer limited expense money for discussions in France, and offer an assignment of claims did not create a legal duty to police the translation.

## Legal Principles

- In disputes arising from publication and exploitation of book rights, the parties’ rights and duties are primarily determined by the publishing contract and the obligations it states or fairly implies.
- A publisher that sells or licenses foreign translation rights to an independent foreign publisher is not, without more, responsible for the foreign publisher’s translation choices or alleged distortions.
- Revenue sharing from foreign-rights sales, and the publisher’s role as the party that negotiates such sales, does not by itself create agency or make the U.S. publisher an insurer of the foreign publisher’s performance.
- An author’s interest in preventing unauthorized alterations to a work is not treated as a broad, free-standing “moral right” that overrides the contract in this setting; protections generally come from contractual limits or from claims against the party that made the changes.
- Voluntary assistance by a publisher to address an author’s complaints does not, standing alone, establish that the publisher assumed a continuing duty to supervise or correct a foreign translation.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed Seroff’s action against Simon & Schuster because the French edition was translated and published by Éditions Robert Laffont as an independent foreign publisher, and Seroff’s contract did not place on Simon & Schuster a duty to supervise or guarantee the accuracy of that translation; any complaint about distortions lay, if at all, against the foreign publisher or translator rather than the U.S. publisher that sold the translation rights.


Seroff v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 162 N.Y.S.2d 770 (1957)