With the recent publicity about the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), it’s an opportune time to review the existing remedies for online copyright infringement in the United States (remedies for sites hosted in other countries are different, and beyond the scope of this article.) First, I recommend that … Continue reading SOPA and PIPA
The Author’s Guild has become quite litigious in recent years. The Guild’s lawsuit against Google for its Google Books project continues, and will go to trial sometime next year. Meanwhile, the Guild, along with Australian and Canadian authors’ organizations and eight individual authors, has filed another high-profile lawsuit, this time against the HathiTrust, a partnership … Continue reading Author’s Guild Lawsuit
A collaboration agreement is a contract between the authors of a joint work setting forth respective ownership, rights, credits, royalties, expenses, and responsibilities. If you are collaborating with someone on any significant work – a short story or a novel – you should have a collaboration agreement. Let’s look at the key issues: Responsibilities. How … Continue reading Collaboration Agreements
Question: Is there a way to legally enter into a contract with a literary agent/publisher without revealing one’s real identity? There is no problem in entering into a publishing or agency agreement under a pseudonym – it’s done frequently by writers who are prolific, or wish to switch genres, or publish in an genre that … Continue reading Q&A: Pseudonyms in Contracts
Q. Tell me about the Google copyright lawsuit settlement. A. Three years ago, the Author’s Guild and other plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against Google for its “Book Search,” alleging that Google violates the copyrights of authors and publishers in books by digitizing (scanning) them, creating an electronic database of books, and displaying short … Continue reading Google Book Lawsuit Settlement
Q. Can you tell me, once and for all, what exactly is “fair use?” A. This is the single-most asked question of publishing lawyers. Thanks to the wonderfully dense language of Congressional bill writing committees, and the courts’ interpretation of their efforts, it is difficult to answer. Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act provides … Continue reading Q&A: Fair Use