IF EVER YOU WORK COLLABORATIVELY...

Advice for anyone working collaboratively: always get an agreement in writing at the outset about what is happening and what will happen with the work in the future and whose name(s) will be attached to the work (all parties probably).

I once worked collaboratively with a fellow writer on a whole novel. We were just goofing around at first and then it developed into a whole novel. We had no written agreement on what we would do with the novel, though the fellow writer did ask me late in the project if they could show it to their agent and I agreed to this.

Then this writer and myself had a fallout (about something else) and the fellow writer pulled back from the project leaving the completed novel in a sort of limbo – where it has languished ever since. I was told I could not use this fellow writer’s characters or ideas*; as the writing had been done so closely together I did not see how the novel could exist without what this other writer had contributed. I have since tried to rework the novel without using this fellow writer’s words and I have something I am pleased with. But I am still very much aware that the work I have remains a joint work – under the law and under copyright law particularly. As a result I thought I was trapped and could do nothing with the finished piece – which I am so proud of by the way.

However, I have done a bit of digging and although the fellow writer has disassociated from the project, it seems that it is still possible to have the work published, even without the fellow writer’s permission.

In a case where two people work together collaboratively with the intention of creating a single joint work, both individuals own the copyright as joint authors of the joint work. Under copyright law, in the absence of a written agreement to the contrary, each joint author owns an undivided interest in the whole work.

As joint copyright owners, under ‘default arrangement’ per the copyright law, the obligation of one owner to the other is to pay the other 50% of anything earned by the marketing of the work.

The ‘default arrangement’ under copyright law also gives each of the collaborators/owners of the copyright the right to exploit the copyright without the other’s permission – as a non-exclusive license.

So there’s hope.

(Information from Owen, Wickersham and Erickson: https://www.owe.com)

* Actually, once the ideas/characters and even the words have been committed to the collaborative work they are all joint owned. In the case discussed above I need not have rewritten the work in order to pursue its publication. Of course, the other writer can also pursue publication independent of me with only the same obligations attached. But whose name goes first on the work - that is a bit trickier to sort out... even in the work that has been rewritten by me! All of this is why it is better to have a written agreement in place first so all these things are sorted out and mutually agreed upon.