The moment at which the first shot in a major war is fired is always significant, especially if there has been a long build-up to the conflict on both sides, and much is at stake. In the world of books, a community under siege if not at war, it may be that hostilities have just been joined this past weekend in the one area – digital rights – that has, hitherto at least, been the subject of no more than preliminary skirmishes.

Last Friday, Markus Dohle, the new chief executive of Random House in the US, moved his tanks on to the well-watered lawns of the American literary establishment. He wrote to a number of US literary agents, claiming that many of his company's longstanding contracts, negotiated before the internet was invented, or ebooks even envisaged, gave Random House "the exclusive right to publish in electronic book publishing formats".

According to the New York Times, Random House US is now in effect contesting the ownership of electronic rights with the estate of William Styron, author of Sophie's Choice, The Confessions of Nat Turner and Darkness Visible. This battle is symbolic of conflicts across the book industry, many of which have been building in intensity for some time, over the electronic rights to backlist titles (the same battle is being fought, for example, over the rights to Joseph Heller's classic Catch-22). For most publishers, "backlist" is another word for "crown jewels".

But it's not plain sailing for the old houses. Advised by their agents, some literary estates are concerned that traditional publishers such as Random House are not offering sufficiently lucrative royalties on ebook editions. Some estates, such as Styron's, are exploring the transfer of these potentially valuable rights to new ebook start-up publishers. The Random House letter was a pre-emptive strike from a group under threat.

In other words, war has been declared.

Here, in the UK, where the ebook has yet to catch on and Kindles are rare sights, this may seem an arcane dispute about a technicality. Even in the US, the vast majority of book sales in 2009 were for conventional books. But the picture is changing.

Make no mistake: whatever the future of book publishing (and there are many theories about that), the digitised version of all kinds of text is part of it, especially for books by authors such as Styron and Heller. The shot just fired by Dohle will be heard around the publishing world: every imprint of any consequence (and good sense) is holding discussions about digitisation, and debating how best to secure the digital future of their backlists. The argument about intellectual property rights, which is complicated in the US by the "creative commons" is one that can only intensify. It has profound implications for the future of all the publishing giants worldwide.

The question must be: by making a pre-emptive strike in this way has Random House just alienated the one group – literary agents – whom it might have been wise to negotiate with on more civil terms before declaring all-out war? Lenin used to say that the fundamental question in any situation is "Who whom?" In the case of ebooks, it's "Who owns the rights?" and "To whom should the income return, and in what percentage?"

This issue, long debated, and still unclear, looks to be heading for the courts. Meanwhile, the digital book juggernaut rolls on, gathering momentum. Whatever the future of the book, one thing is certain: the global audience, especially for English language titles, means that it will appear in ever greater quantities in whatever format is available – and that will include hardbacks, paperbacks ... and ebooks. Random House has certainly launched a terrific salvo, but its missiles may have landed behind the lines, on its own troops.