: Re: How do co-authors' rights to a manuscript work? When an individual writes a novel, he owns all rights over the manuscript until he starts selling those rights to others. What is the situation

@Murray165

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As mentioned previously, if two or more contributors are considered as co-authors, they share in all revenue generated from the work. The exception would be if they had signed some form of agreement beforehand that permits one of the authors to act on behalf of the other(s), but this would be a rare situation.

In regards to the rights reverting to one author after the death of the other(s), it was also mentioned that the deceased author(s) copyright is passed on to the respective heirs, which is an important reason for identifying how you want those rights handled in your will.

The one thing that I would add is that the duration of the copyright is dependent on the last surviving author. Normally, the copyright would expire (in most countries) 70 years after the death of the author. In the case of multiple authors, the copyright is viable for 70 years after the death of the last surviving author. That means that the heirs of the other author(s) could continue to benefit from the copyright even longer.

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