Tag Archive - Copyright

Checked Your Copyright Lately?

January 14, 2011 in Copyright, Publishing with 0 Comments

Have you checked your copyright lately? I mean, have you actually gone to the US Copyright Office web site and searched for your registration? You might be surprised at what you won’t find. Here is the link to start your search.

Most publishing contracts have a clause that requires the publisher to register the copyright, in the name of the author, with the US Copyright Office. This is supposed to be done as part of the in-house paperwork process.

If you do not find your book, don’t panic.

I repeat.  If you do not find your book title, don’t panic. They copyright law is very specific that your work is still protected by the law. However, having it officially registered guarantees your protection. If someone steals your story, your characters, etc. you have to be able to prove when you wrote it originally. That provenance is the key to your protection of your intellectual property.

If you are a published author and you do not find your work registered, contact your publisher in a very kind fashion and request that they comply with the requirements of your contract on this issue. Some may even have a copy of the certificate of registration on file that they can send you.

Don’t assume, if you can’t find it online, that your publisher failed. It may be that you didn’t do the search correctly (never underestimate the power of user-error). Or maybe the title or your name was misspelled in the registration process. That is why it is important to stay calm and make a reasonable request for help from your publisher. Your agent cannot do this for you since you are the copyright holder, the agent is not.

So, if copyright is automatic upon creation, then why check for your registration? The government’s site has some great answers to that question:

  • Copyright registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
  • Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, copyright registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.
  • If made before or within five years of publication, copyright registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
  • If copyright registration is made within three months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney’s fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.
  • Copyright registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies.

In the past I made the mistake of saying that you can just mail yourself a copy of your manuscript (and not open it) to let the postmark be “evidence” of the date of creation. This is also known as “poor man’s copyright.” Unfortunately there is nothing in the law that says this is sufficient. Use their online registration service and pay the $35 fee if you wish to register your material yourself.

Ten Commandments for Working with Your Agent

September 24, 2010 in Agency, Business, Publishing with 36 Comments

By request, here are my Ten Commandments for working with your agent. Break them at your own peril. Thou shalt vent only to thine agent and never directly to thy publisher or editor.

  1. Thou shalt not get whipped into a frenzy by the rumor mill fomented by internet loops, groups, Facebook, or blogs.
  2. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s success. Be content with thine own contract.
  3. If thou hast a dispute with thine agent thou shalt talk to thy agent and seekest resolution. Jumping ship for no good reason is unprofessional…and agents talketh to each other.
  4. Thou shalt consider thy deadlines as sacrosanct. Thy hand signeth the contract, therefore thou art obligated. Thou shalt not expect thy agent to miraculously create extra time, at the last minute.
  5. Respecteth the boundaries of the communication relationship with thy agent. Do not risketh being classified as a spammer or high maintenance by thy agent.
  6. Thou shalt be reasonable and balanced with regard to Facebook, Twitter, blogging, or blogs. Thou art a writer….not a teenager. (Thy social networking and Internet writing shouldeth be related to marketing efforts or to increasing thy platform and readership.) Remembereth…every word written on Facebook is a word not written on thy manuscript. [This commandment was revised on 9/25/10  in response to visceral reactions both public and private. I previously stated that a writer should spend no more than an hour a week with social networking and blogs. Boy did I touch a nerve!]
  7. Keepeth it all in perspective. Selling only eight thousand books still meaneth 8,000 people have “bought a ticket” to read thy work. That crowd would filleth a basketball arena.
  8. Remember thy calling to be a writer and keep it holy. You are in the business of changing the world word by word. Everything else is secondary.
  9. Thou shall rise and call thy agent blessed. (and send chocolates at Christmas and cash on birthdays…)
  10. If thou dost not have an agent, do not passeth “Go.” Instead grabbeth one and bringeth said agent into thy camp ASAP. This industry is a labyrinth and thou shalt someday discover thou needest one, and then it shall be too late. Real life examples available upon request.

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Permission is granted to use this in your own bog or web site, as long as you include the following copyright notice:
© 2010 Steve Laube of The Steve Laube Agency (www.stevelaube.com)

Copyright Research

June 29, 2009 in Copyright, Writing with 8 Comments

Copyright office sealWriters frequently ask about whether they need permission to quote from another book. The answer is usually yes. But if the book is in the public domain that permission is unnecessary. I don’t want to tackle the issue of “Fair Use” today, but instead provide a few links that you can use to find out if a book is in the public domain, or not.

First, use this form (http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~lesk/copyrenew.htmll).
This form searches the U. S. copyright renewal records database. Any book published during the years 1923-1963 which is found in this file is still under copyright, as are all books published after 1964 (although until 1989 they still had to have proper notice and registration).  Books published before 1923, or before Jan. 1, 1964 and not renewed (in the 28th year after publication), are out of copyright and therefore in the public domain. The form only searches books, not music, etc.

Cornell University has provided a very helpful chart to determine if an existing Work is still covered by copyright, see
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm