Authors Agreement with Licence or Assignment?All authors agreements contain either a licence of copyright or an assignment of copyright.
Some kinds of book publishers (e.g. trade publishers) usually take a licence of copyright from their authors, while other kinds (e.g. many educational, professional and academic publishers) demand an assignment of copyright.
A licence of rights is a permission to do things that would otherwise infringe those rights; whereas an assignment of rights is a transfer of ownership of those rights. Notwithstanding this stark distinction, an exclusive licence of rights can be so broad that its effect is similar to an assignment of rights.
Perhaps the key difference between the licences and assignments in our template author agreements is that, upon termination of the agreement, licensed rights will revert to the author, while assigned rights will remain with the publisher.
|
Royalty or Fee Based Authors Agreement?Most authors agreements provide for authors to be remunerated by the payment of a royalty. The level of the royalty may vary depending upon the form of exploitation in question. For instance, an author may demand a higher royalty for electronic forms of exploitation. Royalties are usually calculated by reference to a book's cover price or by reference to the publisher's net receipts. Where royalties are paid, authors will usually ask for an advance on those royalties.
The other method of remuneration is the fee. A fee can be split up, paid in instalments, and made subject to the author meeting particular deadlines.
|
Premium, Standard or Basic Authors Agreement?Each of our authors agreements comes in three type: premium, standard and basic.
The standard author agreements contain all the provisions of the basic documents, with certain additions; similarly, the premium author contracts contain all the provisions of the standard documents, with certain additions.
In addition to the provisions in the basic agreements, the standard agreements include optional provisions providing for: joint or multiple authors, the preparation of an index, more detailed treatment of the parties' responsibilities, revisions of the work, new editions of the work, remainders (where appropriate), licences to the Copyright Licensing Agency, ownership of IP in titles, termination in the event that a work goes out-of-print (in appropriate cases) and contractual notices.
In addition to the provisions in the standard agreements, the premium authos agreements include optional provisions providing for: rules governing infringement actions where the copyright in the work has been infringed, limitations of liability protecting the publishers, an option over future works by the author, payments to authors' agents, termination upon the change of control of the publishers, alternative dispute resolution, and the marketing of the work. The premium templates also include an index.
|
