copyright - search results

Do you have questions about how to assemble your book's copyright page? Here's a breakdown of what information you should include and how you should present it.

Copyright terms and the Public Domain for US authors

When you write something original, you own the copyright to the work as soon as it's fixed in a permanent format (book, printed manuscript, web page, Word file, etc.) [Oh, and by "original," I mean "created by you." But hopefully it's original in that other way too!] Your copyright gives you certain rights in determining when and how your text is "copied" and exploited (published, quoted, etc.). Are you curious how long you and your estate will be able to own the copyright for one of your books?

Copyright for co-authors: If two authors work together, they are joint owners in the copyright, unless the writing was separated in a discernible way.

It's true that you own the copyright to your original creative work the very moment it is set down in a fixed form (written, typed, etc.). But there are certain benefits and protections that are only guaranteed by officially registering your copyright with the Library of Congress. Technological advancements in the internet/mobile world are opening new doors for authors to promote and sell their work. However, these changes also present new challenges in terms of preventing copyright infringement.

While the US and EU continue to debate or reject proposed legislation regarding "orphaned" books (out-of-print but still-in-copyright works whose authors cannot be located), France just passed a new law that is probably going to send some serious shockwaves across both the channel and the pond. According to Writer Beware, the new law: ... empowers the Bibliothèque Nationale de France to create "a freely accessible online database" of all works--not just orphans--published in France before 2001 that are currently out of print.

Our friends at Children's Book Insider/Write-4-Kids have compiled some of the best advice from another BookBaby favorite, author Cory Doctorow, and turned it into an eBook you can download HERE for free! Here's what they...

While it is true that you own the copyright to your original creative work the moment it is set down in a fixed form (written, typed, etc.), there are certain additional benefits and protections...