Authors and Intellectual Property

If you're an author or have another other creative career, have you made arrangements for what happens to your copyrights or artistic creations in the event of your death?

This is something too many authors don't think about. Your body of work—your intellectual property—is an asset that needs to be addressed in a will.

Even if you're not making a killing now with your writing, who knows what the future may hold for what you've written?

NOTE FOR THOSE WITH PUBLISHING ACCOUNTS

In the case of publisher accounts, you should already have an authorized representative on the account who can receive monies from the accounts and make decisions about the account should you be incapacitated or die.

IN THE EVENT OF DEATH

There are a few things you should do now to prepare for death which will come to all of us.

Estate Planning should take into account your intellectual property with a named person to inherit. The intellectual property should be spelled out, i.e., "all published and unpublished manuscripts, complete and in partial, without regard to copyright registrations, all notes, outlines, research materials, and other data associated with writing short stories, novels, or nonfiction books, manuscripts, and articles."

Take time now to make a file listing your intellectual property, where the physical papers, copyright registrations, publisher correspondence, contracts, licensing agreements, etc. are located. Also, if you are published digitally, a list of all publishers including logins and passwords along with a list of your social media accounts used for your business of writing to include logins and passwords.

HAVE A MEETING WITH YOUR DESIGNATED HEIR

Tell your heir what you are doing, where everything is located, and what can be done with your intellectual property in the future. Your heir can even sell his/her rights in the property to another party.

When the will is probated, your heir will have the right to do what he/she thinks best with your intellectual property. 

With that thought in mind, you need to write up what can be done with intellectual property and what you would like done with it if you have restrictions you want honored--which may or may not be enforceable. Your attorney can tell you that.

Your heir would submit a copy of the death certificate and the probated will showing him/her as the legally licensed owned of the intellectual property to any publisher/retailer, etc. who has published your books or wants to license rights in any way.

GIVE YOUR HEIR A COPY OF THE WILL

When you have your completed will, give a photocopy to your heirs and discuss everything with them. Also tell them where the original document is located so they can find it when they need it. This is super important because most of us who are married have it set up for spouse to inherit everything if one of us dies. If both of husband and wife die, your kids or the one kid who is the executor should know what to do.

(I recommend having 2 kids as joint executors if you have a lot of assets because it's a heartbreaking and difficult job.)

TAKEAWAY TRUTH

Having a will is a way to make sure your family doesn't break apart over misunderstandings about who gets what when you die. I've known too many who ended up never speaking to a brother or a sister again because of fighting over assets.

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