You Do Not Own Your Published Book; The Creator and Designer Do

Whether you use a traditional printer or a self-publishing service, whoever turned the manuscript into a published form owns the copyright.

If there is a substantive edit of the original manuscript, the editor actually has rights to the finished works. 

Unless there is a signed release indicating that 100 percent of ALL rights are waived and turned over, the author does not have permission to republish that book in the same form.

There may be implied permission for the author to use the published materials for marketing purposes, but that permission is likely waived as soon as the author picks a fight with the publisher or creator.

Ideas are not copyrighted but images are, so if there are illustrations, a unique cover design plus interior layout, these are copyright materials.

The Canadian Copyright Act has been reformed and these are some of the key points for creators and copyright owners: 

Creators and copyright owners will have new rights and protections that respond to the realities of the digital environment. For example:

• Copyright owners will have stronger legal tools to pursue online pirate sites that facilitate copyright infringement.
• Copyright owners will have new making-available rights to allow them to control how their works are made available online.
• Copyright owners will also be given distribution rights, which will enable a copyright holder to control the first sale of every copy of their work;
• Performers will be given moral rights, which will ensure that their performance is not altered in a way that harms the artist's reputation.
• Photographers will be given the same rights as other creators. They will be the first owner of copyright in their photographs and will receive the same benefits as other creators.
• If copyright owners decide to use digital locks to better protect their works, they will have the support of the law to do so.
• Copyright owners will also benefit from legal protection for rights management information, which connects the creator's identity and other key information to the work.

For the most part, there is not usually a problem on a contract for service basis, but if there is a legal battle, note that, as the author, you may be surprised who actually owns the copyright to your book.

Teamwork Wins Championships--In Everything

Because it is game day for the Super Bowl, to start this piece using sports as an analogy for success seemed like the right thing to do. 

That said, as I watched the credits roll for a movie earlier this morning, it made me think about the recent Screen Actors Guild  Awards and People's Choice Awards. It takes more than good acting to make a movie. You could have the most talented producer or director in the business, but if the acting isn't just right, if the editing is done a certain way, if the music score is out of sync...the product will soon be forgotten. It takes a village and a leader to orchestrate all of the elements for a product to sing off the screen or page.

In publishing, the most talented author to ever bless this planet can pen the greatest book of all time but if it just sits in his computer, nobody will know about it. If nobody knows who this writer is, it will take great packaging to get the public's attention. Packaging isn't singular, it takes teamwork. The work needs editing...not just a once-over read and using Spell Check. You need a skilled graphic designer to create bug-free electronic files. You need someone who knows what they are doing to convert the files to an ebook format. You need to know how to tell people about the book without turning them off.

It is all an orchestrated dance to create a winning product, a winning business plan, a winning team. 

With all the elements in place, you may still miss out on the trophy, but if all the elements are there, and you keep doing all the things right, your chances of getting noticed and perhaps nominated are greater than if you use the "that's good enough" scenario.

Whatever the outcome of the Super Bowl, the losing team used the same amount of effort to get there. Things had to click in the right way. The same for the actors and directors who were nominated but not chosen for the awards. Being there meant they did something remarkable. 

Being remarkable may begin with showing up and assembling a team, but so much more goes into it. 

The World Is A Big Fat Melting Pot

There are some North American readers, and authors, who might be surprised that two of the most forward-thinking and progressive book fairs are the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair. These events have been preaching the digital phase long before Kindle or iPad.

But there is another story here. Abu Dhabi is in the United Arab Emirates and Frankfurt is in Germany. Many North American book publishers are getting their titles printed in China and India.

Publishing is a global industry, but how many books are translated to reflect that?

A while back, a fellow from Portugal approached me about his multi-book series that focused on the published and unpublished material of a renowned writer from that country, which was only available in his native language. He was to translate these stories into English for the North American market, where this famous writer had a bit of a following.

Years ago, a fellow sports media friend told me that although Canada is a bilingual country, many books were not available in French.

Granted, it is expensive to translate. Besides hiring a translator with strong literary skills, it requires a new layout because translated words don't fit the same page flow as the English words.

Think of the books North Americans are missing out on because they haven't been translated into our language.

It begs consideration when one is assessing who their audience is and whether to consider a different language. Your book in Spanish or Russian might even outsell an English book.

Food for thought.

Has Social Media Changed the Scope of Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the difference between borrowing content and stealing it: passing it off as your own. 

Ideas, however, cannot be copyrighted. Many can come up with the same idea at the same time, but not all of them will act on it. It is copyrighted when the idea is put into a physical form. Then it’s the physical form that’s copyright material (the text, song, movie, etc.), not the idea. 

On the physical material, especially in written work, writers quote other writers’ works all the time. They are protected when they credit the other writers and cite where the material came from.

So when you use another person's work, you tell people where the passage came from. How difficult is that? 

It is interesting when you hear of reporters getting fired from high profile media positions for not adhering to this simple concept.

If the material is found online in a blog or website, those words are the copyright of the author. You may not be able to find the author (as in the case of many things that go viral), but you can find the initial source (website/blog), so you cite that source. You don’t just copy and paste the information into your manuscript and forget about it.

Those are the mechanics for publishing and media in traditional form.

But what about the Internet as we know it today? We see items circulating all the time, where the original photographer or author of quote is lost about 12,000 shares deep.

YouTube is a great example. Who doesn't love YouTube and sharing videos? We see a skit on Saturday Night Live that we want to share, but then NBC and YouTube zap the post for copyright infringement. Pissed, you look for another link to share the same video. The same held true during the recent Olympic Summer Games Closing Ceremony in London.

These are today's realities. Copyright material has somehow become creative commons. 

But think about that for a moment. That could be a good thing. If today's marketing is about engagement, don't you want people to share your stuff? The more disciples you create, maybe, just maybe, when you do create a new project, people will actually help you move it.

If I were NBC, I wouldn't keep sifting through YouTube to zap recordings of its content. Instead, I would post on the website the snippets of content you know people will want to share, with a blessing. That snippet is an opportunity to add a message, a contest, anything that might keep them coming back to your website and sharing more. 

Seth Godin is a great example of being shareable. His blog is so popular, he soon discovered that he didn't have to use a traditional publisher to sell his next book when he had a built-in audience from his blog. 

Copyright infringement seems to be at the whim of the author.

By the way, feel free to share this blog with everyone you know.