In this case it could be good business sense. From The Guardian [1]: Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904 and died in 1991. More than 600m copies of his books are in circulation, earning Dr Seuss Enterprises about $33m before tax in 2020, up from $9.5m in 2015, according to the company.
Forbes listed Dr Seuss as the second highest-paid dead celebrity of 2020, in part thanks to multimillion-dollar film and TV deals but mostly because of sales of his books.
It is probably prudent, from a business/investment perspective, for a publisher (or rights owner) to ring-fence works that it considers problematic, by being seen proactively to remove them from sale and stating the reason. This would tend to mitigate the chance of an intemperate backlash against the entire Dr Seuss catalogue.
Forbes listed Dr Seuss as the second highest-paid dead celebrity of 2020, in part thanks to multimillion-dollar film and TV deals but mostly because of sales of his books.
It is probably prudent, from a business/investment perspective, for a publisher (or rights owner) to ring-fence works that it considers problematic, by being seen proactively to remove them from sale and stating the reason. This would tend to mitigate the chance of an intemperate backlash against the entire Dr Seuss catalogue.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/02/six-dr-seuss-b...