Copyright Conundrums: Kathleen Jones gets Legal
Copyright Law is a writer's nightmare. It simply hasn't kept pace with the rapid growth of technology or the multiplications of the World Wide Web. Almost every country has its own laws, but there are no territories on the internet. The law of Copyright is struggling to keep up. As a biographer, writing books full of quotations, permissions are my biggest headache. Publishers and the executors of literary estates charge a fortune for extracts. As an Indie author you will have to pay these fees yourself, but even traditionally published authors have to pay at least half of the total for quotes and all of the fees for photographs. For my Katherine Mansfield biography , almost the whole of my advance was spent on permissions. I had to pay another fee when I re-published it as an e-book. The Copyright Octopus Recently there have been big changes to Copyright Law in the UK and Europe - changes that will affect all writers - and we need to be aware...