A federal judge refused Friday to grant Deseret Book's request to order the destruction of all computerized versions of Hugh Nibley's latest works prepared by another company.
The emergency request before U.S. District Judge David Sam was the latest salvo in a squabble over the rights to volumes 11 and 12 of Nibley's collected works.Deseret Book believes it retains all rights to the books, called "Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass" and "Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present."
But Covenant Communications, an American Fork company, claims Deseret Book leased those rights to a third company: Johnston & Co. Johnston & Co., in turn, asked Covenant Communications to produce the disks.
"Everything we are doing is contracted and very legal," said Lew Kofford, president of Covenant Communications.
This week, Covenant Communications peddled the disk version of Nibley's two books at the annual LDS Booksellers Convention.
Deseret Book delivered a letter to Covenant Communications late Thursday demanding that the company cease making the disks, cancel all orders and destroy all promotional materials.
The reason Deseret Book objected to the sale of the disk version: Such sales will "irreparably interfere with Deseret Book's plans to market their own computerized versions of these two works," the letter said.
Deseret Book's attorney met with Sam in chambers Friday and asked the judge to issue a restraining order banning the sale of the disks and ordering Covenant Communications to destroy them.
"They have published works they don't have rights to and we just want them to stop," Deseret Book attorney Berne Broadbent told the Deseret News.
But Covenant Communication attorney Jay Peck later showed the judge a copy of Deseret Book's contract with Johnston & Co. with him.
The contract gives Johnston & Co. the right to publish computerized versions of "the collected works of Hugh Nibley as part of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies Series," Peck said.
"I showed Judge Sam the title pages of the two books. It states that they are volumes 11 and 12 of the collected works of Hugh Nibley. It also states that they are part of the Foundation for Ancient Research & Mormon Studies Series."
The contract names the first 10 books and doesn't mention the latest two, however.
Sam denied Deseret Book's request for the restraining order. However, he told Broadbent he could later produce any evidence that would prove a need for such an order, Broadbent said.
"I'm disappointed in the way Deseret Book has handled this," Peck said. "We expected this to be handled by discussion rather than an unannounced attempt to get a restraining order."
Covenant Communications has published the computerized versions of Nibley's previous 10 books with Deseret Book's approval, Peck said.
After Sam refused to restrain Covenant Communication, Deseret Book filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of violating federal copyright laws.
Sam scheduled a hearing in the matter for later this month.