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Copyright Basics for Authors

Certain personal rights to your written work (literary work) come from The Constitution as the Copyright Act.

Copyright is essentially the right to own and protect one’s authorship of a creative original work.

The consensus is that an author who writes an original piece of work deserves to have their writing protected, as well as receive some form of compensation for allowing others to utilize that piece.

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Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property, also known as IP, involves original content generated by an individual. For authors, this specifically involves literary works.

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Tangible Medium

A “tangible medium” refers to the expression of thoughts, ideas or concepts that are in a sustainable form in a form that can be perceived or reproduced.

The writing must be “tangible,” meaning existing on some form of medium beyond one’s mind.

Thinking up a poem in your head does not constitute tangible. Typing a poem that is your original creation onto a computer (really, its hard drive) designates tangible.

More obvious forms of tangible work would be in book or manuscript form.

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“Literary Work” Explained for Authors of Books

The Copyright Act, with regard to authors, basically describes a “literary work” as a non-dramatic work that explains, describes or narrates a particular subject, theme or idea through the use of text, rather than dialogue or dramatic action.

Generally, literary works, with regard to authors, are intended to be read; they are not intended to be performed before an audience. They typically exist in books, manuscripts and electronic formats.

Examples of these works are:
Fiction
Nonfiction
Poetry
Directories
Textbooks
Reference Works

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