A Fishy Deal

The little minnow that was Riverdeep, now styling itself as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has swum into shark-infested waters. Even a mighty whale has to respect a predator.

Money has long been an issue for HMH/EMPG/Riverdeep/Greenwood/what-have-you. The merger that created the educational publishing materials behemoth was heavily leveraged and the Irish banks are all belly-up these days. Oil money is drying up. There's no other option than to cut costs.

One way to reduce expenses is, of course, not to pay for certain things. Unfortunately for HMH, one of those certain things is fighting back. With lawyers.

Textbooks utilize pictures to help tell the story. The younger the reader, the more pictures. That means photographers are needed to create a suitably illustrated book. Photographers, wouldn't you know it, like to get paid for their work.

You can't really blame Barry O'Callaghan, who created HMH. He was a member of the so-called "Golden Circle" that made loans to an Irish bank, backed by stock on the same bank. The people of Ireland now own the bank, or what's left of it.

So there it is. Those loans were never paid back, so how could you expect a man to know that going beyond the agreed print run means the photographer gets more money? They were paid once already, weren't they? And shouldn't they be grateful to HMH for being so successful that more textbooks were called for?

Some of the photographers have filed suit, but HMH is large and in charge. A mighty whale of a corporation has suites filled with lawyers in shark-skin suits, and if you're paying an employee, you might as well get a day's work out of them. It's a stretch for the plaintiffs, who aren't so deep in their pockets and are out the money they're owed to begin with.

So far, things aren't looking good for HMH. The judge hearing the case of Ted Wood v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hasn't been the least bit impressed by HMH's legal arguments.

Ever pro-active, HMH has re-worded the fine print in the licensing agreement. If a photographer wants to sell an image to the publisher, it means HMH can print as many books as it likes and there won't be another paycheck showing up in the mail.

It's pretty much what they were doing before, until someone noticed and decided to make a stand against the biggest educational materials publisher.

A familiar stance to Barry O'Callaghan, it seems. He was once a little minnow himself, standing up against the naysayers who didn't think he could swallow all of Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin. While the merger isn't close to being fully digested, he's managed to keep it down, albeit from a lower perch than originally envisioned.