Copyright questions

It might be appropriate for you to register the copyright for the text, and for your illustrator to register the copyright for the illustrations.

caw

If you hired, formally contracted with the illustrator, I think the copyright is yours.

An intellectual property attorney will have better information for you.

If you have a contract with the illustrator, it should spell out whether you own the illustration rights or they do. If you have not written a contract, discuss the question with your illustrator.

The lawyer suggestion is a good one.

Your best bet is to contact an attorney. Make sure they are a literary attorney because most attorneys do not have a clue as it is a minor sub study (my brother is an attorney and has myself going to someone other than him.)

I would definitely suggest asking an attorney about this.

Taken from http://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-author.html

Work Made for Hire

A work made for hire is either

• a work created by an employee as part of his/her regular duties. A person is an employee if the hiring party has the right to control the manner and means by which the work is created. Courts have considered certain factors in the employment relationship, such as whether taxes are withheld or benefits given, to determine whether the contributor is an “employee” under this sense of the definition. See Circular 9.

or
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• a specially commissioned work for certain categories of works and only if there is a written agreement between the employer and employee stating that the work is made for hire. Specially commissioned works must fall into one of the following categories:
  1. contribution to a collective work
  2. part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work
  3. translation
  4. supplementary work
  5. compilation
  6. instructional text
  7. test or answer material for a test
  8. atlas

If a work is made for hire, the employer is the author. See “statutory definition” below.
Statutory definition

A work made for hire is defined as:

• A work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment, or
• A work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.A supplementary work is defined as a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendices and indexes.

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I really don't think these are questions we can answer. They need to be asked of someone with specialized knowledge with whom you have a professional relationship. In other words, an attorney who specializes in copyright.

Debbie V has the answer. You should have a contract with your illustrator that lays out the exact terms of your working arrangement. It doesn't need to be complicated (unless you decide on some kind of profit sharing scheme, in which case it could get very complicated).

Think about what filing a formal copyright will achieve for you. If you still want to, look at your contract with the illustrator to see who owns the rights to the images. Third, seriously consider an attorney. And fourth, rethink the first step.

In my experience, those who seek a copyright are usually the ones with the least to worry about.

Jeff

SarahCat said:

Thank you everyone. I appreciate all of the feedback. I was wondering if a Children's picture book (words and pics) would be filed under copyright as "Visual Arts" or literary work? The descriptions on the copyright website made it seem like literary was text only manuscripts. Right now, I have a text-only copy of the manuscript to upload. Will I have to re upload the manuscript with the images inserted, once I have the pictures?

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Do you own the rights to th illustrations? I believe, but am far from certain, that pictures can be copyrighted individually or as part of the whole.

The Author's Guild or SCBWI may be able to help you here. They have staff lawyers. If you are working on a picture book, I highly recommend joining SCBWI. Otherwise, please do seek an intellectual properties lawyer with experience in picture books. The organizations have lists of them, but yoou may have to join to access the lists.

It's a bit late, maybe, but when anyone else is involved in a project, you need a contract before you do anything else. An IP attorney can draw one up, and it usually costs very little for a project such as yours.