Amazon Kindle contract sucks

Courtesy of the Science Fiction Writers of America, Celia sends us "an annotated copy of the Kindle contract.

Based on my decidedly non-lawyerish interpretation of this contract and the annotations, I think it says that Amazon now owns everything it wants to own, and you're out of luck if you don't like that."

Publishing contracts are generally kind of bogus to begin with, but this is a real pinnacle of bogosity.

Neither party may assign any of its rights or obligations under this Agreement, whether by operation of
law or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the other, except that (i) Amazon may assign any of
its rights and obligations under this Agreement without consent and (ii) you may assign all of you [sic:
your] rights and obligations under this Agreement to any corporation or other entity domiciled in the
United States without consent in connection with the sale of all or substantially all of the assets of a Title;
provided that you shall give Amazon written notice of any such assignment no later than ten (10)
business days following such assignment. Subject to the foregoing limitation, this Agreement will be
binding upon, inure to the benefit of and be enforceable by the parties and their respective successors
and assigns.

Amazon can sell this contract – indeed, the whole Digital Books business – to anybody it wants,
and your contract rides along with the sale. We revert to the essential necessity for you to be able
to terminate this Agreement any time you want under the blue highlighted language in Section 9.

Amazon Kindle Contract Review and Annotation

(Thanks, Celia!)