What Does a Copyright Attorney Do?

Copyright agency means that the copyright owner of the work entrusts all or part of his copyright to the agent, and the agent exercises the rights in the name of the agent, namely the right holder. Such an agent is a copyright agent.

Copyright agent

: A copyright agent is an intermediary or individual that connects authors and publishers. They sign copyright brokering contracts with authors to help authors find work publication and publication opportunities, and thus obtain certain benefits.

The copyright brokerage system has been in existence for 125 years, originally originating in

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01 Mining Author Resources

As a copyright broker, the first thing to do is to discover author resources. This is the main job of a copyright broker and the most basic business. Like the scouts in the film and television and music industries, the author who found potential has signed a brokerage contract with him, packaging the author, and then receiving a return from him.

There are two types of channels for digging authors. One is to choose from the first successful authors. After the debut of Tom Clancy's debut, it attracted a large number of readers with its unique high-tech thriller novels, which was won by dozens of publishing agencies Attach importance to it, lobbying one after another, and vying for the power of agency. The second is to find customers from new creative hands. For a publishing agent, if you can find a rookie with a clear writing style, superb writing skills, and huge market potential and act on behalf of his work, it will undoubtedly be a great success. Successful publishing agents must have a unique vision and constantly discover and cultivate new star authors.

02Responsible for author-related copyright affairs

According to the terms of the brokerage contract, the broker is responsible for handling copyright issues related to the author, including finding publishers, negotiating publishing contracts, marketing arrangements, and so on. Free the author from tedious business work, save time and energy, and concentrate on creation. Ensure that authors are no longer distressed by publishing issues.

Compared with mature copyright brokering systems in Western countries, the creation and publishing process of Chinese authors is much more difficult. Some well-known writers are constantly disturbed by publishers in the creative process. As for ordinary authors, after writing the manuscript, they have to spend a lot of energy and time to find a way out.

As writer Li Xiuwen said: "A writer's job is writing. Writers and brokers are two different professions and should have different divisions of work. Adapting film and television dramas and negotiations are the broker's business. If a writer is to face it, treat him Writing is a hurt. "

03 help authors get maximum returns

As an agent, a copyright broker should strive for the best interests of the agent. For example, bidding on important manuscripts is used to select publishers, so that the author's prepaid royalties hit a record high. In the West, through the efforts of publishing agents, the current royalties of non-literary works sometimes reach one or two million US dollars. For example, some very popular science and technology publications can also sell for millions of dollars, and a good literature Works can often reach millions of dollars. The multi-million-dollar prepaid royalties in the publishing industry are by no means the level that traditional royalties can pay. Publishing brokers have an important role in increasing authors' royalties. In 1971, 11 million copies of The Archmage were sold for a deposit of only $ 26,000. After T. Harris sold "Silent Lamb" to St. Martin Press for $ 750,000, with the help of agent M. Jerome, two other novels with no outline and no title were still being conceived. Sold for $ 5.25 million. Since the 1980s, under the work of a publishing broker, books in the western publishing industry with prepaid royalties of more than $ 1 million have been common, and some have prepaid royalties as high as $ 8 million. For example, in 1995, Langdon Book House prepaid a copyright deposit of $ 6.5 million to General Powell's memoirs; the memoirs of the president of General Electric Company issued royalties in North America for only $ 7.28 million; Simon and Schuster prepaid to Hillary The cost of writing a memoir is $ 8 million.