A Beginner's Guide to Understanding Author Rights
Hello everyone!
2020 has been wild, hasn’t it? Well, this is the perfect time to regroup and strategize for some life goals. If you have a life goal of being an author, I hope this post provides some great information to consider.
Today I’ll be discussing the rights an author has pertaining to their work.
Full disclaimer: this by no means is an exhaustive or comprehensive explanation. If you have specific questions I highly recommend seeking a lawyer who specializes in this stuff.
With that said, what I’m about to share with you is from a handful of undergraduate and graduate classes I have taken on the subjects of copyright and things I have learned from a lifelong interest in the publishing industry.
First of all, let’s explain copyright (in the US).
There are a number of rights an author has that pertains to their work, whether published or unpublished.
There are two buckets when it comes to copyrights: Moral and Economic. Moral rights are the relationship between the author and the work itself. It’s important to note that copyright protects ideas that are expressed in digital and physical forms, not ideas that you haven’t written down yet.
So, the moral of the story (pun only slightly intended) is that you should always write your ideas down and put a date on them. Because BAM. They’re copyright protected the moment you do. But it’s also a good idea to register them if possible for added protection.
Economic rights include the right to use your works to make money. These rights differ in a key aspect: economic rights have an expiration date. In the US, the right for the author to make money off their works extends across their life plus 70 years. After that, it enters the public domain, which can be used by anyone for economic gain.
Classic literature authors, such as Mark Twain and Jane Austen, fall into the public domain. Their moral rights for being the original authors remain intact, but neither they nor their estates can receive economic gain from their works.
In terms of the publishing world, these rights come in a variety of forms, which I have neatly placed in a list that we’ll discuss:
Publishing/Distributing
Media Rights
Derivative Works
Merchandising Rights
All of these author rights are under the umbrella of intellectual property rights, which are heavily protected within many countries. Another fun tidbit is that the United Nations considers intellectual property rights to be a universal human right.
In publishing, these rights are labeled subsidiary rights. I know, all these terms that mean the same thing are awfully confusing. So, let’s break this down.
Publishing/Distributing
Under IP (intellectual property) laws, this is sometimes referred to as reproduction rights. What this means is that you have the right to choose how you want to reproduce and distribute your works. When you work with a publishing house or self-publishing platform, you give them the rights (temporarily) to do the reproduction for you. A subsection of this involves translation rights and foreign publication rights.
Important Note: There should be an end to the contract and the terms should include both parties getting a cut because you are paying them for the service while they are benefitting from the temporary right to publish/distribute your works, which you both profit from (hopefully).
Media Rights
There are actually a handful of media rights, but I’ll directly discuss three:
Performance
Broadcasting
Adaptation
These are fairly self-explanatory and easy to understand. You have the right to sell a license to create an onstage play, TV/Film, or another type of adaptation, such as an audiobook. The negotiations for these types of licenses and contracts can be assisted by specialized agents and agencies, who will ask for a flat fee and/or a royalty on the work.
Depending on how the contract is structured, the author can receive royalties on the profit/sale of the finished product (ie, % profit/sale of a movie purchase) and/or a flat fee (usually a few thousand dollars, but sometimes more) with these types of licenses.
Important Note: Keep in mind, each of these is a separate right that the author holds until they sign it away with a contract, which again, should have very clearly outlined expiration dates. For example, TV/Film licenses are called “options” and essentially, the author gives the studio so many months (12-18 usually) to come up with a script and greenlight the project, which may still require another license to be purchased from the author.
Derivative Rights
When you hold the copyright for something, you also hold the right to create prequels, sequels, and spinoffs of the work. This is not allowed for those who did not originally create the work. If an author signed a contract with a publishing house to publish/distribute a book, the publishing house does not have the right to hire someone else to create a sequel –unless the author signed away their copyright, which you should never do.
This means that at any given time, years later, the author can go back and build upon their original work without having to worry about other people profiting off of it.
Important Note: Now, this is where fanfic issues come into play. While fanfic can have a lot of literary prowess within the craft, much of it is dangerously flirting with copyright infringement.
Merchandising Rights
So, this is fun. These rights mean you can license/create any type of merchandise based on your work. Whether it’s T-Shirts, mugs, socks, figurines, or whatever else, you can totally license it to someplace that can make and distribute them.
There are lots of ways to go about this. If you have the creative skills to design your own merch, then drop shipping through something like Shopify may be a great option for you. There are a variety of businesses and platforms that seek to help people with branded merchandise. I would say book merchandise classifies as this because being an author means being an entrepreneur, whether you like it or not.
Important Note: Most of the time, authors sign this away along with many other rights on this list for the sake of convenience. If you decide to go with a publishing house, make sure they have a solid marketing plan to make it worthwhile to sign this right away.
So, let’s take a step back and explain the importance of knowing all of these rights. Many authors get suckered into unnecessarily signing their rights away to a publishing house, which may not have a qualified team or adequate resources to properly leverage the economic opportunities associated with the rights.
This means that if anything, here are the 3 Key Takeaways from this blog post
1) Authors have a lot of inherent rights once they put their stories in writing
2) Carefully select who you partner with to get your book to the public–make sure you have the right people, equipment and resources in your corner
3) Be mindful of the contract terms when licensing your rights out to third parties–make sure there are clear timelines and compensation for all parties, especially you
All right, I hope this has been helpful! The next blog post will briefly cover the disruption happening right now in journalism.
Talk to you later,
Rochele