A Few Words About Copyright

You'll have noticed on most printed works, from novels to brochures, something along the lines of 'Copyright © Joe Bloggs 2007', and this is the author's way of asserting his ownership of the work you're reading. I own the copyright to all my articles, for example, although I don't always add the copyright symbol.

When you publish your work, it will carry a notice to the same effect, asserting your rights, but in fact anything you write is yours, and is protected by law. No one is permitted to copy it, in whole or part, without your permission, and no one may pass off your work as their own.

This also means, of course, that you must not copy other people's work without their permission, except in rare circumstances - where they have expressly allowed the use of quotations by reviewers, for example.

This law also extends to letters and notes, indeed any written work, and lasts for the lifetime of the author and normally for fifty years afterwards. Sometimes a copyright is sold to, or passes to a third party, such as a publisher or trustee, in which case take care and seek permission from them before borrowing anything. Again, such rights do lapse in time.

Note the spelling of 'copyright', incidentally - a lot of people get confused about the job that we copywriters do. We write 'copy', which is words written specifically for advertisers and publishers, and have nothing to do with the copyright law - except that we're unusual in that we often don't own the copyright to the copy we’ve written! *

For a poet, novelist or story writer, copyright is mainly about protecting your own work and not giving the 'rights' away too easily or at all - with the first offer of publication, for instance. If in doubt, take advice - from the Society of Authors, for example - or employ an agent if you can, who should look after your interests. The usual practice is to grant the rights, for a fee, for publication in a specific volume in a specific territory, for one time only. Wider distribution, republication and syndication should entail an additional fee, and the copyright should ultimately stay with the author. That's you!


* It usually stays with the publishers or advertisers who commissioned the work. You may find yourself in this position if you're commissioned to write any 'copy' from a jingle to a major article. Negotiate, especially if it's an especially 'creative' brief, but the person commissioning your work has (legally)the upper hand!

Roy Everitt, writing for results.