All About Copyright

Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.

White Deer Publishing registers our authors’ books with the U.S. Copyright Office for them. Copyright can be applied for after publication.

Copyright Start and Registration

Copyright exists automatically in an original work of authorship once it is fixed in a tangible medium – meaning that as soon as something is written, the writer owns the copyright.

A copyright owner can take steps to enhance the protections of copyright, the most important of which is registering the work. Although registering a work is not mandatory, for US works, registration is necessary to enforce the exclusive rights of copyright through litigation.

Copyright End

For works created on or after January 1, 1978, the term of copyright is the life of the author plus seventy years after the author’s death. If the work is a joint work with multiple authors, the term lasts for seventy years after the last surviving author’s death.

Grant of Rights

White Deer Publishing acquires the rights from the copyright owner(s) (author[s]) through the signed publishing agreement (contract). In our standard contracts, this includes:

“all right, title, and interest in and to the Work, throughout the world, in perpetuity, and in any and all media and forms of expressions now known or hereafter devised, including but not limited to all copyrights therein for the full term of such copyrights (and any and all extensions and renewals thereof), including but not limited to the following rights.

1.1 To publish, distribute, sell, and generally exploit the Work, in all languages, whether in print, electronic, digital, audio, video, or any other form or format now known or hereafter discovered or created;

1.2 To make and sell, and authorize others to make and sell, all translations, abridgements, excerpts, other editions, and other versions and derivatives of the Work, whether in print, electronic, digital, audio, video, or any other form or format now known or hereafter discovered or created.

1.3 To authorize use of the Work by others without compensation to the Publisher or Author, if, in the judgment of the Publisher, such use may benefit the sale of the Work or of subsidiary rights in the Work.”

All rights not expressly granted to White Deer Publishing in the contract are wholly reserved by the Author.

For this reason:

“If the author retains any rights in the Work, then the copyright notice [as published in the work] should be given in the name of the author, and the copyright in the work should be registered in the name of author as both “Author” and “Copyright Claimant.

...If the publisher does not appear in the copyright registration as “Copyright Claimant,” then it is prudent to record a short-form version of the Agreement in the U.S. Copyright Office to identify the publisher as an owner or licensee of rights in the work.”

– Jonathan Kirsch on behalf of the IBPA, Sample Publisher/Author Agreement

Publisher’s Rights End

White Deer Publishing’s rights to the work, as granted in the contract, end after:

• Duration of contract (e.g., stated license period or other conditions of use, etc.)
• Termination under the terms of contract (e.g., stated termination rights, including “out of print” clause)
• Revocation of permission if given informally
• Author’s statutory termination right (40 years after execution of grant or 35 years after publication, whichever comes first)