Some of you may be aware of this, but I figure that most of you don't. Since March 1st, 2012, a new law has been passed in France which takes away an author's intellectual rights regarding some of his literary works.Indeed, if you have at some point sold foreign rights of your novels to a French publisher prior to January 1st, 2001, and if some of those books are out of print and have not been reprinted since, it turns out that such works are now fair game to anyone who wishes to create digital editions of those novels.
The way the new law is conceived, this means that the author will not receive any advance or royalties from the sales of such ebooks...
France, the cradle of democracy. And now, they have just made online piracy (à la Google) legal.
Unbelievable! =(
For more information, read this article (in French only).