Madeleine Robins November 22nd, 2006
Long time ago I started to talk about contracts and what they mean. I figure it’s time I took up the gauntlet (as opposed to the gantlet) again. Last time it was Grant of Rights; the next paragraph in my contract covers Copyright.
The copyright in the Work will belong to the author. The Publisher is hereby authorized to register the copyright in the United States copyright in the name of the Author. The Publisher agrees the imprint the copyright notice authorized by the United States copyright laws in each copy of the Work distributed by the Publisher. The Author agrees with respect to any rights reserved to the Author hereunder to take all steps necessary to protect the copyright in the Work.
At the end of the graph my Lovely Agent (hereafter LA) has inserted an important sentence: “The publisher will require all sublicensees to imprint the copyright notice.” Why is that important? While you (technically) own copyright from the moment you write something, your hold on the copyright depends, to a certain extent, on vigorous defense thereof (which is why there’s that sentence about the Author agreeing “to take all steps necessary to protect the copyright in the work”). So if you and the Publisher make a deluxe subrights sale to AudioBooks Am Us, the publisher is required to make AudioBooks Am Us include the copyright notice (and make them include it correctly–no slugging in someone else’s name instead of yours).
In the days when I worked at Tor, I was the person responsible for filing the TX forms (the forms registering copyright in a text). My understanding of the law is that you do own copyright from the moment you’ve written your Work–but filing the form cements your copyright in the finished work as it appears.
To return to that vigorous defense business: this is where things like fan fiction can cause trouble for a copyright holder. If Mona Ffysh-Ripple, author of Love’s Avocado Dip, sues Deirdre Deebleknight for infringement of copyright, and Deirdre can prove that there are dozens, maybe hundreds of fan fic stories on the internet using her characters, plot and situations, Deirdre can argue that Mona has failed to “vigorously defend” copyright in her work, leaving the door open for her to borrow stuff too. This is a vexed subject: a lot of publishers/production companies know that there’s a marketing benefit to having people so immersed in your world that they want to continue that experience; still, you don’t want to lose copyright and its economic benefits.
And really, that’s what it comes down to: yes, copyright protects you from somone who might steal your work and say it is hers. But in the final analysis it’s copyright that protects your right to make money from your work (and the publisher’s right to make money from your work, and you’d better believe they care about that–publishers have mortgages and food bills too).