{"id":128954,"date":"2011-09-22T13:21:51","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T08:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=128954"},"modified":"2011-09-22T13:46:22","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T08:46:22","slug":"wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-protests-unauthorized-release-of-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/09\/22\/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-protests-unauthorized-release-of-memoir.html","title":{"rendered":"WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Protests Unauthorized Release of Memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has accused a UK publisher of a breach of contract for releasing drafts of his autobiography without his approval, <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-15014133\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">BBC reports<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Edinburgh-based Canongate says the memoir will be sold in shops and online.<\/p>\n<p>But Assange says it is an unchecked work in progress and the publisher was profiteering from an erroneous draft.<\/p>\n<p>Canongate says Assange had worked with a ghostwriter, but later backed out and tried to cancel his contract.<\/p>\n<p>The publisher said he had been paid an advance \u2014 understood by the BBC to be a substantial six-figure sum \u2014 and since he had not repaid it, it had decided to publish the first draft received in March.<\/p>\n<p>Assange said in a statement: &#8220;The events surrounding its unauthorized publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity \u2014 screwing people over to make a buck.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said Canongate had acted in breach of contract and personal assurances that the draft would not be released without his permission.<\/p>\n<p>The independent publishing firm paid the 40-year-old for the rights to the memoir last year.<\/p>\n<p>In a <strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.canongate.tv\/media\/pdf\/Statement%20from%20Canongate%20Books.pdf\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">statement<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong> it said: &#8220;On 7 June 2011, with 38 publishing houses around the world committed to releasing the book, Julian told us he wanted to cancel his contract.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;However, he had already signed his advance over to his lawyers to settle his legal bills.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have decided to honour that contract and to publish. Once the advance has been earned out, we will continue to honour the contract and pay Julian royalties.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The book recounts Assange&#8217;s early life growing up in Australia and how he became entranced by computers \u2014 and by hacking \u2014 to the founding of the secret-spilling website.<\/p>\n<p>Assange is out on bail and living at a supporter&#8217;s mansion in eastern England as he awaits a judge&#8217;s decision on whether he will be extradited to Sweden to face those allegations. A ruling is expected within weeks.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Assange said in a statement: &#8220;The events surrounding its unauthorized publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57131,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[19422,32327,32326,32325],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}