The attorneys at Morningstar Law Group are leaders who are frequently asked to share their legal insights and expertise. Here is a sampling of the wisdom our attorneys are sharing at industry conferences, in published articles, and at continuing legal education events.
Insight
FTC and DOJ Urge Exemptions from DMCA Restrictions
April 4, 2024
Copyright Law Update by Mitch Tuchman Chances are you know the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) from the widely deployed DMCA take-down notices that copyright owners use to remove putatively infringing content from the Internet. Enacted in 1998, the DMCA is more, however, with provisions scattered throughout the Copyright Act (the “Act”) addressing many copyright […]
Insight
"See Ya', Bye": Termination Provisions in Publishing Agreements
May 13, 2022
Try this for a paradox: “All provisions of this agreement shall survive its termination.” For real: this was shown to me without a glimmer of irony during a contract review. A publishing agreement either expires at the end of its term or is earlier terminated, generally by action of one or both parties. Expiration aside, […]
Insight
How Not to Become a Banker: As an Author, Protect Your Revenue
May 13, 2022
A publishing agreement may call for royalties to be paid monthly, quarterly, semiannually, or annually. The longer royalties accrue unpaid in an author’s account, the more that author steps into the shoes of the publisher’s banker. While royalties accrue unpaid, the publisher is earning interest; the author is earning bupkis. An author’s job is to […]
Insight
"Dibs on Your Next Book": Advice to Authors Publishing Their Second Works
May 13, 2022
Naturally, a publisher who has gambled on an author’s early work wants to reap the rewards of their shared success. Accordingly, publishers call, “Dibs on your next book.” Words to that effect appear frequently in publishing agreements and go on to reassure the author: “If we are not interested, you can take it elsewhere.” Even […]
Insight
Reps and Warranties in Publishing Agreements
August 27, 2021
In the 1970 comedy Brand X Taylor Mead, playing the president, is asked by a journalist, “Sir, what will you do when the inevitable happens?” “I’m an optimist,” he responds, “I don’t think the inevitable will happen.” But inevitably it does. In publishing and other agreements each party seeks to shift liability to the other […]
Insight
World Rights in Book Publishing Agreements
August 18, 2021
A publisher typically tries to negotiate for “world rights”, asking an author to authorize an exclusive, worldwide license to exercise all of the author’s rights under copyright and the ability to authorize sublicensees to exercise one or more of those rights (e.g., foreign language translation) throughout the duration and territory of the publishing agreement. While […]
Insight
Book Publishing Agreements: Copyright Ownership & Licenses
July 19, 2021
Who Owns the Copyright in a Book? The nature of most trade book publishing agreements is not a transfer of copyright ownership from the author to the publisher but a license granted by the author to the publisher to exercise some or all of the author’s rights for a reasonable length of time in a […]
Insight
Understanding Book Publishing Agreements: Territory
July 2, 2021
What Are Martians Reading This Season? Does your publisher sell books on Mars or license rights on Venus? If not, then “throughout the universe,” which we see from time to time as the defined territory in publishing agreements, is not appropriate. Perhaps the publisher simply does not want to risk being left without a toehold […]
Insight
How Long Should a Book Publishing Agreement Endure?
June 23, 2021
This is the 2nd article in a series intended to introduce readers to publishing agreements. Click HERE for Mitch’s 1st installment. Authors don’t live to see their copyrights expire. By law those rights endure 70 years postmortem and frequently pass unheralded through their owners’ estates to uninformed or indifferent heirs. Yet every day publishers negotiate […]
Insight
New to Publishing Agreements? What You Need to Know.
June 18, 2021
In a world before self-publishing—and still today—authors with the ability to write but not the wherewithal to print and sell books in commercial quantities engaged publishers to do so. Publishers in turn undertook to manufacture and distribute books—and maybe sublicense rights to create derivative works—looking to the resulting revenues to compensate themselves for their risks […]
