I've always wanted to share about how copyright works in the book publishing or freelancing business, as I've read online that there are so many questions about copyright and who owns this and that, etc. I will share, to the best of my ability, my stand on copyright especially in digital art, children's books, films, music, or game app assets.
Contents
Disclaimer
I am not a lawyer, and definitely cannot provide legal explanations like a lawyer does to these topics, but I'm only a normal citizen of the internet and I have to know what copyright is in this freelancing industry as an artist that does digital art. So please excuse me if my information is not very attorney-like, and you are welcome to consult one to further clarify things. Thanks very much!
What is a Copyright?
A copyright is a collection of rights that automatically vest to someone who creates an original work of authorship like a literary work, song, movie, or software. These rights include the right to reproduce the work, prepare derivative works, distribute copies, and perform and display the work publicly.
To put it simply...
Whoever created "something" is automatically considered the owner, and has the right to make copies of his creation as many as he likes, and as strict as he wants to be. This "something" can be a story, an illustration, or music as long as it is a completed item or product that can be shared or sold. An "idea" is not enough, it has to be a completed work to be called a product and have ownership. The owner has all the rights to report anyone else using his creation somewhere else without his permission, yes, he has all rights reserved.
Registration and deposit of your works aren’t necessary but authors and artists may opt to file for the copyright registration of their work with IPOPHL for the issuance of the appropriate certificate of copyright registration. https://www.ipophil.gov.ph/copyright/
Owners can however offer licenses to their creation so that they can manage how people can share it, or if they can buy copies for themselves.
Types of Licenses
There are 6 types of licenses I know of, thanks to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Sharing the details here.
Attribution CC BY This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of the licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA
This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open-source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY-ND
This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.
Attribution-NonCommercial CC BY-NC
This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA
This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under identical terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
Work-For-Hire
So we're on the part where people would like to work together to complete a project (that creation, the something that's completed). What if someone like an author created a story, completed the story, and would love to publish the book? He can, of course, publish it right away, without hiring anyone to do other essential services. But he might be disappointed because the final work is not very professional-looking, and might need illustrations, book formatting, and other design elements. So the author needs to "hire someone". Then he will now set a work-for-hire agreement, which makes him an employer, and the illustrator or designer will be an employee. But please keep in mind that the employer-employee relationship includes company benefits and assurance for continued work for at least 6 months, so if your work is freelance, you cannot be considered an employee but an independent artist or freelancer.
Both the author and designer must read and review the agreement properly. The author has all the right to his written story of course, but the illustrator will also have the right to the illustrations. The illustrator will require a higher fee if the illustrations will be copied for profit, or for commercial use. But the final illustrations will not be altered in any way unless agreed upon.
There will be other clauses to consider, just like - how many copies should be made? And if the illustrator requires credit, among many others. These things will need time and the right decisions for both parties and should be written on the agreement specifically so that both will never have issues in the future.
Royalties
This is optional for the author if the parties involved have already agreed to an exact amount for the service rendered only, and do not include the royalties. Usually, the freelance artist will not ask for royalties, after all, it's the author who most likely will do the marketing. But it is good to consider discussing this.
Some authors will ask for a "collaboration" type of work (with sharing of the profit or royalties, if there is any) instead of compensation for services, which is not ideal for freelancers. This is not very much advisable to anyone, a labor made should be compensated fairly within the time of work. But the author and illustrator will have the final decision in all of this, so just make sure a specific and completed agreement is prepared before making these transactions.
FAQ
What if my work is stolen? What can I do? There is no way but to either contact the thief or directly report it to the authorities and ask it to be taken down. The authorities can be the platform where the stolen good is displayed, report it, and prepare your proof, and it should be removed. If a client ran away without paying, it is also part of "stealing", and what you can do best, aside from reporting to authority, is to display your final output. It will be harsh to mention in public that the client ran away, but some people do it so that the client could never do it again with other artists.
I'm an author, what are my rights to the illustrations of my own book? The story is all yours, but the illustrations will belong to the one who created them. It is recommended that artists be credited for their work as well, this is a sign of respect for their work. The author and illustrator must agree to the use of the illustrations first and foremost before starting the work because some illustrators are happy to give full commercial use with unlimited copy, no royalty, and even no credit, but that's just unfair, I think. The fee must be really high for professionals.
I'm an illustrator, what can I do to make sure my work won't be compromised? Make sure you have discussed these things with the author, and that this is well explained on your portfolio, or site where you display your services. For example, if you post a gig about illustrating a book, include a statement that you require credit for all your final work, but you are happy to give commercial use license in exchange for a higher fee.
Conclusions
So there we have it, folks, I hope you learned something. These things apply to anything created digitally, but there are of course rules for every country, these things mentioned are merely general ideas of working with copyright. This is a good link to read more about copyright for artists.
Basically, anything that's created and completed like a story, a song, music, an illustration, a video, game codes, or game apps, shall automatically have a copyright belonging to its creator. A mere idea is not included in this, however. The creator will have the right to give licenses for people to share their work. Creators may also hire others to collaborate with on their projects, but this must be discussed thoroughly together with a specific and fair agreement for both parties. Discussions should include the price, the time, licenses involved, credits, copies, profit, and royalties among others.
Thank you for reading, we'll add more when we have gathered more details about this topic.
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