Copyright is the legal right to decide who may copy, sell, or adapt a piece of creative work. For a self-published author it works in two directions. It protects the book you have written from the moment you write it, with no form to fill in. It also limits what you can take from other people’s work, whether that is a photograph found online, a song lyric, or an old novel you want to retell.
This guide gathers our posts on copyright in one place: what you may use from other people’s work, how much you have to change when you rewrite a book whose copyright has expired, what goes on the copyright page, whether to register your copyright in the US, and what to do when a copy of your book turns up where it should not. Each post answers a single question and stands on its own, so start wherever your question sits rather than at the top. We add to the guide as we cover more ground, so it is worth bookmarking.
One caveat: copyright is national law, so the details change from country to country, including how long protection lasts and how much of someone else’s work you may quote. These posts mostly use US law for their worked examples, and several say where the UK, the EU, Canada, and Australia differ. Nobody at ebookpbook is a lawyer, and the posts explain how copyright generally works rather than giving legal advice. For a question with real money or risk attached, ask a copyright lawyer in the country where you publish.
Using other people’s work
- What you can legally use: images found online, song lyrics, quotations, Creative Commons material, and brand names, and which of them need permission.
- Rewriting a public domain book: once a book’s copyright has expired, how much you have to add before the new version is yours, and how to check it has expired where you sell.
Your own copyright
- The copyright page: what the law requires on it, what is only convention, and what changes for an ebook or a new edition.
- Registering copyright in the US: what registration adds to the protection your book already has, and how to file online.
- Pirated copies: how to tell real piracy from fake download sites and ordinary resellers, and how to get a copy taken down.