Hi everyone, I am new to this forum but have been pouring over it all morning hoping to find some answers. As yet, my problem seems unique, so perhaps you wouldn't mind offering me some sage advice?
I am creating (and have almost completed) an anthology of 101 true stories about wildlife encounters submitted by the public (a little bit like Chicken Soup for the Soul in that respect). It is not a showcase of writing talent, but rather a collection of everyday people's close enounters etc. with wild animals. So I must be clear that none of the contributors are writers as such and all stories were submitted as contributions to the book for no remuneration.
Why should anyone give you contributions for a book and not get paid? I assume you expect to be paid for the copies which sell: why should the people who provided you with content, without which the book would not be possible, not get fair recompense for their work?
All straightforward so far.
No, I'm afraid it isn't.
Unless you were very specific about what you wanted contributions for, and issued appropriate contracts to everyone who submitted their work to you, then you almost certainly have landed yourself in a huge mess, both legally and editorially.
And judging by the questions you've asked here, you didn't do the things you should have done before you started, and are now going to have to do all sorts of boring legal stuff: and if the people who have submitted the stories to you are not prepared to comply, or decide to demand financial recompense in return for their work--and no matter what you said when you asked for their stories, some are going to do these things--then you are in an impossible situation.
However as none of the contributors are natural writers, their tales required very heavy editing (in some cases, almost rewriting them from scratch) to turn them into neat, readable and exciting little yarns.
Editing does not involve "rewriting from scratch". It involves the editor pointing problems in the text to the writer of the piece, and the writer making the changes--or refusing to.
I hope you made it clear to these people that you might rewrite their contributions before you went ahead and did it. If you didn't, you might well find yourself in legal trouble.
I am especially worried about your rewriting these pieces to turn them into "exciting little yarns". Did you spice anything up, or exaggerate anything, or change any of the events in the anecdotes supplied? If you did that, rather than just tightening up the writing and correcting the punctuation, then you've gone too far. Your additions might cause legal problems for the people who provided the stories--this is not something to ignore in the hope it all works out.
So here comes the conundrum...
The manuscript is almost complete and now I must arrange the permissions and/or transfer of copyright for each of the 101 stories. That raises two questions:
1) What is the most suitable legal avenue here: a complete transfer of copyright from them to me, or grant me exclusive publication and dissemination rights?
In my view, neither of these suggestions are appropriate for contributions to an anthology. You require only the rights you can use--in this case, the right to include them in your anthology. You definitely don't go after copyright, or an exclusive right to the works: that would be greedy and inappropriate.
You need to speak to a lawyer who understands IP rights and publishing. Note that this is a very specialist area, and most lawyers aren't going to be able to help you.
2) However with many of the stories so heavily edited, who actually owns the copyright? The finished product is - in most cases - significantly different from the original, but it is still the contributor's tale and will be attributed to the contributor as being "their story".
The author of the original piece owns the copyright no matter how much you've changed it. I find it worrying that you would even think that you might somehow own the copyright of someone else's work by rewriting it in this way.
If you've changed their work without their permission or knowledge, and you go ahead and publish it with their name attached to it, you might well find yourself at the centre of an expensive legal wrangle.
Also, consider the legal implications if they mentioned someone else in their piece, and you have rewritten the piece significantly. What happens if the person they mentioned objects to how they've been portrayed--but only to your portrayal of them, and not to how they appeared in the original piece?
I am particularly worried by this, which I'll pull out of your previous quote:
The finished product is - in most cases - significantly different from the original
If you wanted to edit an anthology of other people's works, then it's entirely inappropriate of you to rewrite their work because you don't think it good enough: either use it or don't, but don't rewrite it.
If you want to write your own book about this subject then go ahead and do so, but don't do so by taking other people's works and putting them into your own words. This is not appropriate either. Write your own stuff, right from the start.
How should the rights issue be resolved?
Any thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards
Pangolin
You should have worked all this out before you started. There are huge legal implications here, and as it stands now, it's a great big mess.
Do you have a publisher lined up for this anthology? If so, then throw yourself on their mercy and ask for advice: they should be able to tell you what they require, or direct you to an appropriate lawyer who should be able to help you. I doubt they'll be happy to discover that you've rewritten some of the contributions: you will have to tell them this, and show them the extent of your rewrites, so that they can decide how to proceed.
If you don't have a publisher, then how do you intend to publish the anthology?
If you intend to find a publisher, then you have big problems: you are unlikely to find a publisher unless you have all the rights sorted out; but you can't work out which rights to obtain from your contributors until you know what your publisher needs.
If you intend to self-publish this anthology, then you're going to have to work out exactly which rights you need and why, how you're going to sell and produce the book, and all sorts of other stuff, which means putting together a proper proposal and publishing schedule for the book, and a business plan for your publishing endeavours.
You have a lot of work ahead of you, I'm afraid.
