After the Wylie Agency’s announcement this morning that it would be publishing Kindle editions of backlist titles by some of its powerhouse authors, including Philip Roth and Norman Mailer, through a new business called Odyssey Editions, Random House made vague allusions that it might sue over rights issues. Wylie claims an author or estate controls the digital rights to works in contracts drawn up before e-books existed. Random House, not surprisingly, disagrees. Now RH has upped the ante, saying it simply won’t do business with Wylie. The publisher has just released this statement:

“The Wylie Agency’s decision to sell e-books exclusively to Amazon for titles which are subject to active Random House agreements undermines our longstanding commitments to and investments in our authors, and it establishes this Agency as our direct competitor. Therefore, regrettably, Random House on a worldwide basis will not be entering into any new English-language business agreements with the Wylie Agency until this situation is resolved.”