Posts Tagged ‘copyright’

Rights and Copyright

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Copyright, literally, is “the right to copy.” It guarantees the authors of creative works–including books, artworks, films, recordings, photographs–the exclusive right for a set period of time to allow other people to copy and distribute the work, by whatever means and in whatever media currently exist. It also prohibits copying and distributing without the author’s permission. You own copyright by law, automatically, as soon your work is fixed in tangible form–i.e., the minute you write down the words.

Contained within copyright is the entire bundle of rights that an author can grant to others or utilize him/herself. For book authors, this includes the right to publish in book or other form, to make translations and audio recordings and films, to create serializations or abridgements or derivative works…the list goes on, and continues to expand as technology makes different forms of publication and distribution possible.

When you sign a publishing contract, you are granting the publisher permission to exploit (i.e., to publish and distribute for profit) some or all of your rights for a defined period of time. Because you own the copyright, granting rights doesn’t mean you lose or abandon those rights–merely that you authorize someone else to use them for a while, either exclusively (no one else can use them at the same time) or nonexclusively (you can also grant them to others). Eventually, once the contract term has expired or the book has ceased to sell in significant numbers, the publisher will cease publication and relinquish its claim on your rights. This is known as rights reversion. Sometimes reversion is automatic (as in a fixed-term contract); sometimes you must request reversion after the book has been declared out of print (as in a life-of-copyright contract). Once your rights have reverted, you are free to re-sell them if you can or use them yourself, as you choose.

For many readers of this blog, the above will seem pretty elementary. But confusion between rights and copyright is not unusual–not just among authors (one common misplaced fear, that granting rights to a publisher means you lose them forever, is often used as a justification for self-publishing), but among inexperienced publishers. If I had a dollar for every small press contract I’ve seen that hopelessly conflates rights and copyright (for instance, requiring writers to grant copyright, but then reserving a variety of subrights to the author), I could take my husband Rob out to a very fancy dinner.

Some suggestions to untangle the confusion and protect yourself:

- First and foremost, understand copyright and the rights it gives you. The US Copyright Office, the UK Intellectual Property Office, and the Australian Copyright Council all offer information. The more you know, the more likely it is that you’ll recognize bad contract clauses when you run across them.

- Except in specific circumstances, such as doing work-for-hire, don’t give away your copyright, not even temporarily. Inexperienced publishers sometimes ask for this, believing they need it to properly exploit authors’ rights. They don’t–and if things go wrong, it can work out very badly for you.

- You don’t necessarily need to be afraid of life-of-copyright contracts. In a fixed-term contract, you grant rights for a defined amount of time–say, three years. In a life-of-copyright contract, you grant rights for the duration of copyright (currently, in the USA and most of Europe, your lifetime plus 70 years). New authors often find life-of-copyright contracts very scary–but they’re standard in commercial publishing, and many smaller presses have them also. They are not intended to allow the publisher to hold your rights until 70 years after your death, but rather to create an open-ended situation in which the publisher can keep your book in print for as long as it continues to sell.

Of course, you need to evaluate the situation. For a new small publisher, life-of-copyright might not be such a great idea, since the failure rate for new publishers is very high. A fixed-term contract might be better, as it would at least ensure you got your rights back eventually, even if the publisher didn’t bother to return them before disappearing. And a life-of-copyright grant term must be balanced by a rights reversion clause (see below).

- Speaking of grant terms, make sure there is one. Whether it’s three years or life-of-copyright, your contract should state the term for which rights are being granted. I’ve seen small publishers’ contracts that lack this important detail.

- Make sure your contract includes some provision for rights reversion. While you want to grant rights to a publisher that will properly exploit them, you also want eventually to get your rights back. When and how this happens should be clearly spelled out in your contract.

A time-limited contract is one way to ensure reversion–but beware of automatic renewal clauses that make it difficult for you to terminate, or that rely on you remembering to send the publisher notice before the renewal date and thus can easily be forgotten. Beware also of excessive grant terms–for instance, the contract of one well-known author mill extends for seven years, which is longer than many commercially-published books remain in print. For a smaller publisher, three to five years, with the possibility of renewal if both parties agree, is probably the most you want to consider.

For life-of-copyright contracts, there should be a rights reversion clause detailing when the work will go out of print (ideally, this should be tied to minimum sales or royalty levels, rather than mere availability for sale, so that the publisher can’t hang on to your rights if your book is selling just a couple of copies a year) and what steps you can take to demand that the publisher return your rights (usually, a letter asking the publisher either to republish or return rights, and providing a timeframe for the publisher to respond). Never sign a life-of-copyright contract that does not include such a clause. Yes, they exist; I’ve seen them.

Also look for a clause requiring the publisher to publish within a specific period of time (say, 12-24 months), or else return rights. This will prevent the publisher from sitting on your book without ever publishing it, or from pushing the publishing date back indefinitely due to incompetence or malice.

- Last but very definitely not least, never rely on a publisher’s verbal assurances. A confused or devious publisher may assure you that, even though its contract requires you to give up copyright, “you aren’t really losing your copyright, because we’ll give it back later on.” Or, even though its life-of-copyright contract doesn’t include a reversion clause, “you don’t need to worry, because we never hold on to rights forever.” Maybe the publisher means it, maybe it doesn’t–but do you really want to risk signing with a publisher whose contract doesn’t match its promises? Along with Yog’s Law, a principle by which authors should always abide is this: If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist.

For more on copyright, including the reasons why you don’t need to register copyright for unpublished work and a discussion of several common copyright myths, see the Copyright page of the Writer Beware website.

Tags: copyright, Publishing, victoria strauss, Writer Beware
Posted in Copyright Education, SFWA Blog, Writer Beware | 2 Comments »

Copyrights and Meteorites

Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

Do I need to Copyright my unpublished manuscript?

No.

No? Won’t an editor steal it?

No. Editors don’t steal. That’s a myth. And, unfortunately, many new writers believe it.

Think about it. How would stealing a manuscript benefit an editor? If he doesn’t like the story, there’s no reason to steal. If he does like the story enough to publish it, what advantage would he get from stealing? Saving the cost of paying you? If the magazine pays in copies, all he’s saving is postage. If the magazine pays cash, the money is already budgeted for that story. Why risk your reputation over money you were planning to spend anyway?

And if an editor did steal stories, word would get around. Top authors would stop sending anything. Without top authors, the quality of the magazine would drop. As quality drops, so does circulation. Very soon, an editor who stole stories would be out of business, with no one willing to hire her (would you hire a thief?).

Maybe they’ll print it with the name of a famous author to boost sales.

Nope. First of all, do you really think a big-name author would allow that to happen? If a magazine put, say, John Grisham’s name on your story, Grisham’s attorneys would be on the line within a week.

Besides, names don’t make that much of a difference to a magazine. They get plenty of big names just in the course of doing business — legitimate stories from these people. Also, a big name on the cover doesn’t make that much of a difference except for newsstand sales, which, for most fiction magazines, are not a major source of income (most magazines lose money on newsstand sales).

In addition, one of the joys of editing is discovering a new author. Editors are delighted when they can publish someone for the first time.

OK, so they may not steal my story. What if they steal my ideas?

Editors don’t buy ideas; they buy stories and articles.

Ideas are a dime a gross; there isn’t a person walking the street who can’t come up with an idea that could potentially make a first-rate story. It’s the execution of that idea that makes a story. A brilliant idea is worthless if the story is poorly written, with weak characters and no plot. Similarly, some excellent stories have been written from very unimpressive ideas.

Since the chances are quite good that someone thought up an idea similar to yours independently, you can’t depend on ideas to succeed as a writer. You need to know how to write.

In any case, all this doesn’t matter. You can’t Copyright an idea, just its expression. Even if someone did steal an idea, Copyright wouldn’t protect you.

But I’ve heard about people suing publishers for stealing their stories?

Those stories involve either movie studios or songwriters; things are different in Hollywood. And in the vast majority of these, the cases are thrown out of court. Why? Because these were all groundless. Whenever a movie or song becomes successful, people come out of the woodwork and try to cash in.

Also, most people complain about people stealing their ideas and, as I mentioned, ideas aren’t Copyrightable.

But that’s Hollywood. It is not book or magazine publishing. In sixteen years of writing fiction professionally I have never heard of an editor taking a submitted story and stealing it. Never. It just does not happen.

I’m still concerned. How do I know I won’t be the first?

If you’re not going to trust the editor not to steal your story, why are you going to trust her to publish it?

Publishing is based on trust. The editor trusts that you haven’t stolen the story from someone else, for instance (plagiarized submissions considerably outnumber those stolen by editors). As an author, you are expected to keep your word to the editor. And vice versa. Nearly all editors do.

Still, it can’t hurt to get Copyright, can it?

Yes, it can. It can hurt your pocketbook, and it can hurt your chances of getting a story published.

Pocketbook issues first. It costs money to register a Copyright. (By the way, you do have some Copyright protection from the moment you create a story, whether you register it or not. You cannot sue for damages, but you can prevent anyone from publishing without permission.) The last I checked, it cost $20. Now if you don’t sell the story, this isn’t very cost-effective. The same if you sell to a market that pays in copies. If you write twenty stories a year, you will have to earn over $400 from sales to pay for Copyright costs. That’s $400 a year for the equivalent of meteorite insurance. Is that worth it? I’d rather spend that money on postage or books or new computer equipment or even a night at the theater. I make little enough money writing as it to waste it on nonessentials.

Also, if you do Copyright a story, technically, you are required to include a Copyright notice. This has to indicate the date of Copyright. Now, suppose an editor sees a story of yours with the line “Copyright © 1988.” His first thought will be “This story hasn’t sold in nine years?” Not a good first impression.*

What should I do, then?

What all professional writers do: send your stories off without worrying about theft. The publisher will Copyright the story when they buy it; let them deal with it. There are too many other problems facing a writer to have to worry about meteorites.

For a look at Copyright law, you can go to the Copyright Office Website

Tags: beginners, Chuck Rothman, copyright, Publishing
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Contracts and Copyrights, Copyright Education, Information Center | Comments Off