Lawline faculty member Cheryl Davis begins her recent CLE program with this foundational question:

“When you’re a writer, where do your rights come from?”

If you guessed that these rights are established within the Constitution, you are correct! The Constitution itself grants “authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”  As Davis explains, federal copyright law grants writers a bundle of rights including the right to copy their work, create derivative works, and display their work. Davis provides sample contract language from The Writers Guild of America, The Dramatists Guild of America, and The Authors Guild to demonstrate how writers’ rights may vary by industry.  For example, in the TV and film industries, production companies generally own written content rather than the writers themselves.

In addition to providing sample language, the program explores other critical aspects involved in protecting written work, including author royalties and the fair use doctrine. Lastly, Davis provides attorneys with essential items to consider when entering an agreement to distribute written work.

Featured in Lawline’s Top Women Faculty of 2017, Davis serves as General Counsel of The Authors Guild and is herself an award-winning playwright.  Taught from her dual perspective as an attorney and writer, Your Rights When You Write – which outlines the rights of writers in the film, television, theater, and book publishing industries – is a must-watch.