Just this week, author Harper Lee filed a lawsuit because she feels that she was duped into assigning her copyright for To Kill a Mockingbird to a literary agent:
It is important for all authors to note that, while this case is particularly high-profile and an especially predatory instance of unintentional copyright transfer, it is common practice for publishers to ask for many more of the rights that inherently belong to the author of a work than are actually needed in order to publish the work.
During this Spring 2013 semester, the library organized a talk about author rights which was led by Laura Quilter, Copyright and Information Policy Librarian at UMass Amherst. Ms. Quilter, who has also earned a J.D. in Copyright Law, discussed the actions creators of published works can take to retain and negotiate the rights to their scholarly output during the author agreement phase, and in some cases even regain their copyright on works published decades ago.
As both a librarian and a lawyer, Ms. Quilter offered a look at the complex legal issues surrounding copyright of published materials, paired with a practical approach and explanation in plain language.
Video footage of Laura Quilter’s presentation is currently being edited, and will be offered here for those who were unable to attend this first brown bag lunch discussion.
In the meantime, the following resources may help you as you maneuver through the publishing phase:
- Laura Quilter’s Slide Deck: From our 3/20/2013 talk. Click on the “Download” button to view the slides.
- SPARC Author Rights Pamphlet: An informative brochure from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
- Scholar’s Copyright Addendum Engine: Simply enter some brief information about your work, and this tool generates an author addendum you may use to negotiate with publishers.
- SPARC Author Addendum: Another format of ready-to-use author publication agreement addenda.
If you run into any questions about any of the above, please don’t hesitate to contact:
Libby Lipin at em.lipin@assumption.edu or 508-767-7136
Happy Writing!
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