Know Your (Copy) Rights
Today, too many creators take a passive attitude toward their copyrights. So say the authors of Columbia University Law School's Keep Your Copyrights website.
Geared toward artists, but also a good resource for publishers, agents, and distributors, the site is designed to help creators hold on to their copyrights, to license their rights on author-friendly terms, and in general to encourage creators to take a more active role in managing the life of their creative work. The premise for the website is the assumption that publishers expect artists to be unfamiliar with their legal rights under copyright and contract law, and assume they wouldn't know a good copyright contract clause from a bad one, or that creators, eager to publish and make money, will be too intimidated to object to "form contracts" or other one-sided contracts pushed by publishers and distributors.
One of the most useful parts of the website is the easy-to-read and understand sample contract provisions culled from example contracts, each "creator-friendly" contract clause labeled with a green THUMBS-UP! while "creator-unfriendly" contract clauses are labeled with an orange THUMBS-DOWN! Contract terms that ask the creator to give up too much of his or her rights for little in return are characterized as "incredibly overreaching" and shown with a red claw.
This website is an excellent resource for those looking for example/sample contracts, such as those involving rights of exclusive use, non-exclusive use, grant back, new media rights, changes to the work, geographic scope, duration of grant, general assignment of copyright, notice, works made for hire, reversion of rights. The website includes content specific to writers, photographers, filmmakers, musician, visual artist, contest entry form creators, user-generated content submissions, commissioned works, literary authors, journalists, academic authors, and video game designers.
Related: for those looking to allow others to publish, copy, and distribute works on-line under a creative commons license should review the Creative Commons nonprofit corporation website.
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