TORONTO -- The Montreal publisher of a controversial book about serial killer Karla Homolka is suing Random House of Canada for alleged copyright infringement.

In 2002, Pierre Turgeon's company Trait d'union released Stephen Williams's Karla: A Pact with the Devil in French, followed by an English edition from its imprint Cantos International in 2003.

Turgeon alleges he owns the rights to the mass-market edition, and was planning to release one timed to Homolka's release from jail in 2005, but that Random House of Canada pre-empted him with an edition from imprint Seal Books in May, 2004. In a suit filed in Federal Court July 26, Trait d'union is demanding $315,000 in damages from the German-owned multinational, as well as asking for an injunction to stop publishing Karla.

"If they can do that, what's the next step?" said Turgeon on the phone from Montreal. "I'm about to publish the biography of Conrad Black [by George Tombs], are they going to publish this in paperback also? Could I take their most successful book and publish it in paperback as I see fit?""

Random House of Canada spokesperson Tracey Turriff said the company had no comment to make on a pending lawsuit.

But the author of Karla alleges that neither Trait d'union nor Cantos International ever held the rights to a mass-market paperback edition. Williams also alleges that Turgeon failed to honour the terms of their contract, and that the rights to all formats of the books reverted to him when Turgeon didn't supply him with a number of copies of the book, as stipulated by a clause in their contract.

"[The lawsuit] is frivolous for a number of reasons," said Williams. "First of all, he doesn't have the rights to the book. . . . All the rights reverted to me at any rate because he didn't live up to his contract."

In July, 2003, Williams filed a lawsuit against Turgeon's companies for $350,000 asking for unpaid royalties, damages and costs.

Both Williams and Turgeon are no strangers to courtroom controversy. Williams has become a cause célèbre in the fight for freedom of expression after police raids on his home last year landed him a night in jail, the confiscation of his computers and files for his books, Karla and his earlier publication Invisible Darkness, and his website. Williams was charged with nearly 100 counts of various violation of court orders and publication bans in a case that is still before the court.

Turgeon's publishing empire, meanwhile, has faced recent lawsuits with claims amounting to about $500,000 filed by both its clients and suppliers, according to industry magazine Quill & Quire. In addition to Williams's suit against Turgeon's companies, printer Marc Veilleux sued for $100,000 in unpaid bills last year; the matter was later settled. Translator Jean Bergeron filed a suit for about $32,000, "alleging various contract violations." And Random House of Canada launched a $5,800 suit earlier this year to recover royalties it claims are owed to Andrew Mitrovica for his book about Canadian Security Intelligence Services, Covert Entry, which was released in French by Trait d'union.