Copyright protects every writer, not just the professionals. Simon Whaley explains why every writer should know their rights.
As soon as we commit an idea to paper or keyboard, it is protected by copyright. Our writing business is up and running! Once an idea has been expressed in a physical form, we, as the creator, have rights. Rights that we can licence to others.
Copyright is an intellectual property right. It is granted automatically, with no need for registration. (Some countries, like the US, operate a voluntary registration service, which then allows copyright holders to pursue infringement lawsuits in federal courts for breach of copyright.)
Copyright treats all writers equally, whether we treat our writing as a hobby or as a business. Other people cannot use our work unless they have asked for permission and we have granted it.
Primary Rights
When a publisher expresses an interest in our writing and offers to publish, they are seeking the right to do so. We can charge them for this permission, which is how we can generate an income from our writing. Unfortunately, it’s often a buyers’ market, so we might not always receive as much as we’d like.
We refer to these permissions as primary rights. Article and short story writers grant magazines the right to use our words in their publications, while authors (or their agents) grant publishers the right to publish their words in various book formats.
Issuing several licences in one project can generate more income, as long as the permissions are restricted to prevent them from affecting other licences already issued for the same project. Three key ways to restrict a licence are through format, territory, and duration.
Format
Format relates to the end product. As readers, there are a myriad of ways in which we might consume a book. We might buy the eBook, the paperback, the hardback, the limited edition gold-leaf embossed cover with fancy blue ribbon that can be used as a bookmark, or even the audiobook version. Each one of these is a different format.
A writer might licence each of these formats to a different publisher. It’s less common for this to happen these days, with many publishers looking to acquire as many formats as possible, but each format could be subject to different contractual terms.
Territorial
Licences tend to be granted on a territorial basis. A short story writer might grant a UK magazine the right to use their story in English, in the UK, and grant another magazine the right to use the same story, in English, in South Africa, depending upon the contractual details.
Book publishing often takes a regional approach, even when countries use the same language. Literary agents may sell their authors’ books to UK publishers, granting them a licence to publish and sell the book in the UK and its Commonwealth territories, while also granting an American publisher the right to publish and sell the book in North America.
While doing this can benefit the author financially, it also allows for the editing of the North American version to include American spellings.
However, with magazines and publishers becoming global businesses, many now seek World English rights in a writer’s work. That might sew up the English-speaking market, but it doesn’t stop writers from exploring other foreign territories for their work if they can get it translated.
Likewise, agents seek publishing deals with foreign publishers to maximise sales and income.
Duration
A licence cannot be granted indefinitely. In the UK, copyright lasts for the writer’s lifetime plus an additional seventy years, so the maximum licence term is for the duration of copyright.
The 1886 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is the oldest international copyright treaty. Originally, it set the minimum term of copyright as fifty years after the creator’s death. Many countries now exceed this limit. The UK, US, European Union, and several other countries have opted for Life plus 70. Mexican copyrights lasts for another one hundred years after the creator’s death.
Copyright holders can licence their work for any period, up to the maximum copyright period. Shorter timescales mean that once a licence had expired, the creator can offer the licence again, hopefully securing further payment.
However, publishers often seek longer licences to ensure they have time to recover their production costs and make a profit. Cue negotiations!
Exclusivity
There is a fourth element to licences, which is linked to duration, and that is exclusivity. Many publishers want an exclusive licence. If they’re investing their money to have the manuscript edited and proofread, covers designed, books printed, and then distributed to bookshops across the country, they will not want another publisher to have a similar licence and compete with them.
Exclusivity can be the cherry on the cake that makes a licence holder agree to a shorter licence duration.
Sometimes licences can be non-exclusive, particularly with online uses. A magazine will want the exclusive right to publish your short story, poem, or article in their print publications (because they won’t want your story appearing in a competitor magazine), but they may only request a non-exclusive online licence.
This means they want a licence to use our material online but, because it’s non-exclusive, our content could appear elsewhere online.
Any permission we grant applies to us as the creator, too. If we’ve granted a publisher an exclusive online licence to use our work, then that prevents us from uploading the same material on our website, even though we’re the creator and copyright holder. If we’ve granted the exclusive online permission to someone else, then we don’t have the right to use it.
Mix and Match
These three variables, along with exclusivity, mean it’s possible to create a variety of licences in our work, all thanks to copyright. It’s not always possible to exploit every right in every piece of work we create, but this is how literary agents help maximise their clients’ incomes.
They also enable the creation of new permissions when new formats emerge. Before eBook readers, publishers licensed many digital versions of books under general electronic formats, such as DVDs and CD Roms.
In theory, as creators, we can issue licences for any use we like, if we think we can sell it, on condition it doesn’t affect any other licence we have granted in our work. So if you have a short story that would fit on a T-shirt, you could grant a UK clothing company the World English language T-shirt rights to your short story for five years, which they could sell around the world during that time period.
All Rights
Some publishers ask for all rights in our work. All rights are exactly what they say they are. Give a publisher all rights and they may use your material in any format (including T-shirts!) and, potentially, in any language and any time duration. It all depends upon other contractual clauses. Think carefully about what such an agreement means for you.
Moral Rights
Copyright also grants us moral rights. There are two important aspects of moral rights for creators. The first is the right of attribution. Moral rights give us the right to be recognised as the creator of the work. The second is the right of integrity. This means we can object to any amendment of our work that might prejudice our reputation.
Countries treat moral rights differently. In the UK, moral rights last for the duration of copyright, but they can be waived during that period. Some publishing contracts include clauses that insist on asserting the author’s moral rights. That means their name must appear on their work.
Secondary Rights
We may also be entitled to money generated by secondary rights. These are reproduction rights that arise because we’ve exercised our primary rights. For example, after we have granted a magazine the primary right to publish our article, it then becomes something people can photocopy or scan once it has been published.
The Copyright Licensing Agency issues licences to the business, government, and educational sectors, giving them permission to copy or scan copyrighted material in return for a fee. Some of this money is passed to the ALCS (Authors Licensing and Collecting Society) to distribute to writers. The ALCS also collects funds from other sources in the UK and overseas, which it then distributes.
If you’ve had an article published in a magazine with an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) or a book published with an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), then it’s worth joining the ALCS and registering your published works with them. There’s a one-off joining fee, but this is deducted from your first payment, so there’s nothing to pay up front.
Another secondary right is PLR (Public Lending Right). This recompenses authors every time readers borrow their book from libraries. If your book (traditionally or self-published) has an ISBN, register it with the British Library as soon as it is published.
After Death
We might not want to think about it, but we can bequeath our copyright in all our writing (not just the published material) in our last will and testament. After we’ve died, copyright in our writing continues to exist for another seventy years, so the new copyright holder can grant permissions, allowing them to generate an income from it.
Assigning Copyright
Because copyright enables us to do so much, we should exercise extreme caution when our assigning copyright to someone else. Always take legal advice. Once we have signed it away, we have lost all control over that piece of work, including the moral rights and the ability to earn money from it in the future.
Organisations like the Society of Authors, the Alliance of Independent Authors, the Writers Guild, and the National Union of Journalists can offer advice on contracts.
Copyright isn’t just for professional writers—it’s for every writer. That’s why it’s important we understand the basics of copyright and what it enables us to do with our writing.
Business Directory
ALCS: alcs.co.uk
PLR: bl.uk/plr/
Society of Authors: societyofauthors.org/
Writers Guild of Great Britain: writersguild.org.uk/
Alliance of Independent Authors: allianceindependentauthors.org/
National Union of Journalists: nuj.org.uk/
UK Government Copyright: gov.uk/government/collections/intellectual-property-copyright
(c) Simon Whaley