If you are an author or musician you may view your book or musical work as your child. It is a piece of your life and a piece of yourself, and the day of publication is magic for every author. At Sirius Legal, we like to experience this joy with you.
For more than 20 years, we have been working for publishers, authors and composers and for management companies such as Sabam. We truly understand your love for your book.
Creating good contracts around copyright is a craft. Whether it is publishing contracts for books, music deals or audiovisual projects, the devil is often in the details. A strong contract drafted with expertise is indispensable.
As lawyers, we are somewhat cynical in this regard, possibly because we mostly see those cases where things actually go wrong and discussions about copyrights arise. Unfortunately, a lot of those stories end up in court, and in our view there are rarely winners in legal proceedings. On the other hand, those proceedings teach us a lot. It is precisely because of our years of experience as lawyers in IP disputes that we know exactly what to look out for when you as an author or publisher entrust us with negotiating, drafting or reviewing your contracts.
What exactly do we do? Well, in a lot of cases we support authors in their negotiations. We explain to them what their rights are, what negotiation options they have, what fees they can and should expect and what is and is not common in the industry. We also help with drafting contracts or reviewing and modifying drafts you receive from your partners.
And it is, of course, not all that we do. For example, we have recently helped a new online publisher in the context of its start-up, not only with standard publishing contracts, but also with all legal aspects of the start-up, ranging from corporate law and advice on copyright to ensuring that their company is GDPR compliant.
Discussions between authors or between authors’ heirs are not unfamiliar to us either. For example, we have recently advised the heirs of a successful Flemish author on the value of the publishing contracts in the estate and their impact on the division of the estate. We also settled a dispute between two Flemish composers and their record company regarding the distribution of copyrights on their work and assisted a Flemish author in selling the film rights to one of her books to an American film group.
No one likes to pay more taxes than necessary. Do you have a creative profession? With the copyrighted content you create, you may be subject to a significant tax benefit!
Good contracts make for good friends. The same applies to your intellectual property. Your creations are golden, protect them well!
Which intellectual property rights can you invoke? We are happy to advise you on copyright, designs and models, trademarks, know-how and trade secrets as well as software and database protection.
