Copywrongs
Five Misconceptions About Copyright
Good morning and welcome to Shelf Life, where we are talking about copyright again.
I talk about copyright kind of a lot, because it’s a central tenet of publishing and, at the same time, something that many writers don’t know all that much about. On the one hand, I don’t want you—as an author—to know or need to know all that much about copyright. Authors should be able to rely on their publisher to help them with the ins and outs of copyright so that the author can focus on the thing they’re best at: Writing books.
On the other hand, not knowing enough about copyright can make a writer vulnerable to innocent misinformation as well as unscrupulous individuals and companies that exist to take advantage of inexperienced authors.
There’s a concept of “enough information to be dangerous.” Knowing that copyright exists and that it’s involved with protecting your precious intellectual property (IP) is the amount of information that’s dangerous. My goal is to arm authors with a little more information than that—enough to protect your IP and thwart scammers, but not enough that you cease being a writer and take up a position in rights and permissions or, worse, copyright law, at a publishing company.
1. You Need to Apply for Copyright
This is the most commonly repeated wrong copyright advice I see offered on writing forums and social media: That authors need to take some kind of action in order to acquire the copyright to their work, such as applying for copyright with the Library of Congress.
This is completely false. You do not need to do anything to “secure” or “acquire” the copyright to your work. Copyright is not granted by any governing body like the Library of Congress. It is a natural right. By setting down a creative work in a fixed form—such as writing down a story, or recording a song, or painting a portrait—you (the creator) automatically have the copyright to that work. You don’t need to fill a form. You don’t need to pay a fee. You do not need to pass go and you certainly don’t receive $200. The minute your work is set down in a fixed form, you own the copyright.
You can write © Your Name on the copyright page. This is true and correct. There’s no paperwork or proof you need to show to claim that copyright.
If you wish to take an additional step toward protecting your copyright, you can register the existence of your copyright with the aptly named copyright register of the Library of Congress. Just know this: Registration creates a record of your copyright ownership. It does not create, convey, or make official your ownership of that copyright. You already own it, officially, just by being the author.
2. Your IP Isn’t Protected Unless You Register Your Copyright
In the event that someone steals your work to profit from or to pass off as their own, your work is protected. You can send a cease and desist. You can contact their publisher or web host or Amazon with proof that the work was yours first and the publisher or host will investigate and, after confirming that the work is indeed yours, suspend the thief. Copyright law is international and observed by all signatories to the Berne Convention.
Now: Is there a guarantee that you will get the result you want when you show proof of your copyright ownership? No—but neither is there a guarantee of the result you want even if you have registered your copyright.
Registration of your copyright with the Library of Congress gives you access to the court system to assert your ownership of that copyright. What this means is that, if you have registered your copyright, you can use that registration to sue someone in a court of law for infringing your copyright. You cannot do that if the copyright is not registered.
That doesn’t mean you can’t protect your copyright if it’s not registered. It just means you cannot use the courts in your copyright’s defense. The Copyright Alliance has a helpful article on why you may want to register your copyright even though copyright protection is automatic.
3. Mailing a Copy of Your Work to Yourself Is a DIY Copyright Registration
This is sometimes called “the poor man’s copyright.” The idea is that you print out a copy of your work—or otherwise create a physical copy, for instance by imprinting it to a thumb drive—and then mailing that copy to yourself via the United States Postal Service. When the package with your work inside arrives, do not unseal it. Just stick it in a drawer somewhere and hold onto it.
This supposedly registers your copyright “for free” because a Federal office (the USPS) has placed a timestamp (the postmark) on the sealed package. This timestamp can then prove, when the package is opened, that the work was yours before anyone else had it.
So, this is all true. If you mail yourself a copy of your work et cetera postmark et cetera, then, yes, you can use that to prove you own the copyright on a work as you had it first. Anyone who stole your work thereafter would not be able to prove they had it earlier than you.
However, as explained in parts 1 and 2,
You already own the copyright and do not need to take any action like mailing yourself a packet to secure that copyright.
Only an official registration with the Library of Congress allows you to sue for infringement; the “poor man’s copyright” does not convey this right.
There is no need to do this postal trick. It does not replace a true copyright registration in a meaningful way and does not give you the right to protect your copyright via the justice system the way a registration does. The registration fee for a standard copyright application with the Library of Congress is $65. If you’re worried you may have to sue for infringement of your published work in court, then just pay the $65 to register the copyright. Don’t spend $10 to mail your 3lb printed-out manuscript to yourself; it’s a waste of cash.
4. You Need a Publisher to Register Your Copyright
You don’t need a publisher, or a copyright lawyer, or any other third party, to help you register your copyright. All you need to do is fill out a form TX and submit it, along with your registration fee and a copy of your work, to the TX office at the Library of Congress. Anyone can do this. It’s inexpensive and easy.
There are people, companies, and websites out there who will offer to register your copyright for you or help you register your copyright—for a fee. Don’t take them up on this! First, there is just no reason to pay someone to do this easy peasy task for you. I used to do dozens of copyright registration forms a day. Trust me, you can do this in your sleep.
But second, anyone who is trying to get money out of you to “secure” or “acquire” your copyright on your behalf is trying to take advantage of you or scam you. Do you really want to send this person a copy of your manuscript to register on your behalf? I mean if they’re already trying to scam you, what’s to stop them just registering it in their own name, if you think about it? Could you sort it out if they did that? Yeah—you could show your email correspondence with them and the version history on your manuscript file and get the fraudulent registration canceled. But why risk having to go through all that? If you absolutely must register your copyright, just do it yourself.
5. You Should Register Your Copyright as Soon as Your Draft Is Complete
I see writers and authors advising one another on social all the time to register the copyright to their work as soon as they have a draft complete. Protect it from theft at the earliest possible opportunity, is the idea. Don’t send it out to beta readers, development editors, or agents unprotected. Get that registration before you let anyone else see—and potentially steal—your work.
Okay first, editors and agents are not out to steal your work. It really surprises me how often I see that people are concerned about this happening. Scammers might do this but legitimate agents and editors will not. Take measures to ensure you’re working with legitimate professionals and the possibility of your work being stolen by an agent or editor is pretty much nil.
But second, if you intend to traditionally publish, the publisher will take care of registering your copyright for you. They want to do this and probably have someone on staff who handles it. If the publisher takes care of registering the copyright in your name, then they (the publisher) will have the registration paperwork on file in the event that legal action is needed. Further, the publisher will register the final, published version of your work, which is superior to registering copyright on an earlier draft.
Copyright applies to the work overall and not to specific drafts separately. Meaning, if you wrote A Life in Shelves: My Autobiography you hold the copyright to that book, which covers earlier drafts. You don’t hold the copyright to each draft individually. Or you do if you want to look at it that way, who cares. What’s important is you may only register the copyright for that work once. If you finish your first draft and register the copyright, and then revise three times before you publish, you cannot register the copyright again. The version on file at the Library of Congress is the one you submitted initially—the first draft.
Truthfully, the only time to register the copyright on your work is when you publish that work yourself. If it is unpublished, there is very little need for a registered copyright. If your work is published by a traditional publisher, they will handle your copyright registration. The only reason to register your own copyright is if you published your own stuff independently.
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