He pursued a seven-year-long breach-of-contract claim against Oxford University Press, which he won with a landmark legal judgment in the Court of Appeal in 1990.
Reporting on the verdict in The Observer, Laurence Marks wrote, "It is the first time in living memory that Grub Street has won such a victory over its oppressors".
[1] The case ended in July 1992 with a Tomlin order, a damages settlement under the terms of which the servants and agents of Oxford University are permanently barred from denigrating Malcolm or his work Making Names.
Malcolm campaigned against the charitable status and tax exemption of the Oxford University Press,[5] and was described by Private Eye as "the scourge of OUP".
In a literally dramatic climax the philosopher invokes a new model which, he claims, gets to the heart of things..."[9]In May 1985, after nine months of negotiation, Making Names was accepted for publication, subject to certain revisions, by the Oxford University Press general books editor, Henry Hardy.
When Malcolm returned six months later with the book revised as agreed, he found that it was instead to be handled by a junior editor, Nicola Bion, who turned it down.
In an affidavit for the damages assessment, Professor Roy Edgley of Sussex University said, "Making Names is an exceptional piece of work, highly unusual in both its content and presentation.
Malcolm's use of dialogue is in certain ways more fully dramatic than Plato's or Berkeley's, his writing is fluent and wonderfully easy to read.
"[15] Upon its publication in 1992, Making Names was reviewed by R. W. Noble in the TES: "Andrew Malcolm's Making Names, with its entertaining philosophical dialogues, is an interesting publishing event in itself, even if we were not aware of the fact that this book made legal history when the Appeal Court ruled that Oxford University Press infringed the law when they reneged on their contract to publish it....Malcolm, as his title forewarns us, deals with some modish issues of semiotics, but the overall contents are more comparable to some of Bertrand Russell's later writing, effectively communicating the essentials of philosophy and scientific theorising to students and general readers....The core dialogues in Making Names should prove to be a popular introductory text in public and college libraries, especially for students of philosophy, general studies, applied linguistics and English language teaching methods....Making Names is an original tour de force..."[16] Terence Kealey reviewed the book in The Spectator: "It is a comprehensive, professional textbook that introduces the philosophy that is taught in sixth-form colleges or polytechnics... Making Names is fun, it deserves to be published, and resourceful teachers will find it useful".
"[18] Arina Patrikova, who went on to win the 2005 Newdigate prize for poetry, reassessed the book in 2002 in The Oxford Student: "Now, more than twenty years since its completion, Making Names is neither obsolete nor dispensable.
At the trial in March 1990, although Deputy Judge Gavin Lightman found that Hardy had made a firm commitment to Malcolm, he concluded that no legally binding contract had been entered into because specific details, such as the book's print run, format, and price, had not formally been agreed[20] Lightman's decision was overturned on appeal by a majority of two to one (Mustill LJ dissenting, but adding "for once it is satisfying to be in a minority").
Lord Justice Leggatt concluded: "It is difficult to know what the Deputy Judge [Lightman] meant by a 'firm commitment' other than an intention to create legal relations.
It follows that in my judgment when Mr. Hardy used the expressions 'commitment' and 'a fair royalty' he did in fact mean what he said; and I venture to think that it would take a lawyer to arrive at any other conclusion.
While the contract case clarified and in certain respects extended authors' rights, the ensuing assessment of damages proceedings (1991–1992) shed light on modern royalty agreements.
In the latter article, Malcolm argued: "There are several powerful reasons why authors with existing contracts might wish to enforce the reversion of their copyrights in their out-of-print (printed on demand) works, and there is waiting to be set an important legal precedent which would at once allow them all to do so.
Hardy wrote, "Andrew Malcolm has written two excellent books – an engaging and original introduction to philosophy in dialogue form, and this gripping story of the alleged ineptitude and skulduggery with which he was treated by a publisher to whom he offered it... Malcolm has a real gift for farce – and the portrayal of muddle and evasiveness on the part of the publishing grandees and their legal representatives is intensely tragicomic.
It is part of a great university, which the Government supports financially and which exists to develop and transmit our intellectual culture...It is a perennial complaint by the English faculty that the barbarians are at the gate.
"[25] With OUP's charitable status already in the news, The Remedy's appendix on the Oxbridge presses' tax exemption was seized on by the media, provoking much public discussion in the UK, USA, South Africa and India.
Asked by the Oxford Times if his campaigning had influenced the decision, Malcolm said, "I did get involved slightly last autumn by talking to the Indian Solicitor General.
In his Times Higher Education Supplement review, Hardy wrote that in his original decision to publish Making Names, "he had the strong support – later withdrawn for reasons he never fully understood – of one of the Delegates.
[11][31] On 13 April 2001, reacting to Hardy's review, Ryan wrote in the THES that he had changed his mind about publishing the book because "what had seemed fresh, lively and amusing seemed coarse and jeering the third time around.
[37] His response was to write a letter to Oxford's solicitors in which he said, "I might, with the aid of certain benefactors, be able within a month or two to raise the entire sum of £12,500, and possibly even more, providing that the money is used by the University to endow a lecture series (or alternatively a part-time lectureship) in the subject of Publishing Law.
Malcolm's response to the 2002 judgment was to open a shop and gallery, Akme Expression, at 12 Broad Street in Oxford, opposite Balliol College and the Martyr's Mark.
"[41] Malcolm told the Oxford Mail, "this must have been the oddest invited book-signing in history: no window display, no poster, just an author quietly addressing his peaceable audience, while a team of security men solemnly requisitioned their table and chairs.
According to a report in The Guardian, he put himself forward as a "hands-on reformer", promising to save Oxford's "battered reputation for integrity and academic excellence and help it regain its lost place amongst the front rank of the world's universities.