What Moral Rights mean to you

Moral rights mean that the work cannot be changed to detract from the author’s relationship to that work, even if the copyright is owned by someone else. In other words, if someone else uses your material, even legally, they cannot change it from your original intent. These rights preserve the integrity of the work and no one, including the copyright holder if that is not the creator, can alter, distort or mutilate the work.

You are the creator. If you intend a work to be a discussion about immigration for example, no one can change the work (or the words you have written in the way you have written them) to make the work seem like a racist commentary. Anymore than a gallery can alter an artist's painting, no one can alter your work.

Moral rights are always held by the author of a work regardless of who owns the copyright. Canada recognizes these rights in its Copyright Act. NO ONE can change what you have written exept yourself. This gives the creator a lot of empowerment when it comes to their work.

Registering Copyright

When you decide to register copyright of your book, you will also want to make sure you keep proof of your work. This is done so that your claim of original work has something to back it up. If there is ever a dispute about who created the work, it may end up in court. You will need evidence from those who saw the work in progress and previous drafts of your work. Some of the evidential items you might want to have would include the following:

Dated drafts and outlines
Dated research records used to create the work
Names of those you shared the work with at different stages
Written records of any agreements made concerning creation of material or ownership of copyright material

The Canadian Copyright Office is handled by the federal government Business Development Centre. You can register either online, by fax or via regular post. The form is on the website at www.bdc-canada.com. The time it takes to register your copyright will depend on whether any revisions or corrections are required, but normally it would be five business days for filing. Under normal circumstances, you should receive your registration certificate within four to six weeks from the time the Copyright Office receives it. Make sure you plan copyright registration into your timeline.

There are currently three price packages for registering copyright – Basic, Standard and Professional Copyright Registration Packages. Each one comes with a different price tag. At the time of this printing the cost of the Basic Package was $118.90, broke down as:

• BDC fee of $50.00 which includes completion of government forms and filling of copyright application
• Government filing fee of $50.00
• Shipping & handling fee of $15.00
• GST $3.90

The website gives the cost breakdown of all price packages. It is full of information and provides the answers to most questions you may have.

To copyright or not?

One of the first things new authors ask is how to copyright their material. It is not necessary to register the copyright in order to have protection in Canada. The symbol, author name and year give protection. Many authors want to register their book because they want the certificate that is issued. Some authors think that you should do this as a matter of course. Others believe that if your work is available only in Canada or your province or just your local community, that the expenditure is not necessary. Like many aspects of self-publishing, this is a personal decision.

Copyright protection begins when the work is created and ends 50 years after the death of the creator. It last for the lifetime of the author. It can be sold or gifted, which is why it is important for authors to read the fine print in contracts to ensuer they are not giving away their copyright. Never assign your copyright to a publisher, whether it be trade or subsidy. Copyright can also we willed to your heirs. This means that authors need to make sure their will is updated every time they create a new work and register it.

To copyright or not is a personal and business decision. I will discuss it in further detail in future posts.

My updated website goes live on October 5

Tomorrow my updated website goes live. We have been working on it for some time and finally we have it completed. We want to change the focus from selling Self Publishing in Canada (ISBN 978-1-894208-00-0) to being a destination for self-publishers worldwide.

In my experience, most writers who either have self-published or plan to tend to work in solitude. We want to give you a place to go for help. We will be offering a Free Report on Getting Your Book Into Print and a monthly newsletter. We keep current on what is happening in the publishing industry because it affects the independents too.

Stop by www.selfpublishing.ca and check out the updated website.