We're starting today's post with a hypothetical.
Kimber from The Pinning Mama created one of our favorite recipes for an Italian Chicken Bake, which spotlights Kirkland's Signature Pesto from Costco. One day, she gets an email from Costco stating that they'd like to feature her recipe with all original images on their website and Facebook page. She'd receive a royalty payment and full attribution. It's a great offer and she wants to take it. But, she also wants to make sure she is protected legally. So what's next?
As the original creator of the recipe and images, Kimber would be eligible to any rights attached to the copyrights. Even though the recipe is not subject to copyright law, the images that Costco wants to publish are protected.
When you own the copyright to a piece of content, the following rights are protected:
- Reproduction of the work
- Creation of derivative works
- Distribution of the work
- Public performance of the work, if it is an audiovisual work
- Display of the work
There are two primary ways to transfer your copyright rights. If you are looking to permanently transfer all rights in a work that you created, it's handled through an assignment. The person you assign the rights to would then own the content and all rights associated with it.
To grant someone limited rights to your copyrighted content, you would use a content license. Through a license, you retain your copyright, but you give the other party permission to use your content in a specific way. The license can be exclusive or non-exclusive and you set the term within the agreement. The license that you grant can be for one or all of the copyright rights. For example, in the hypothetical situation we described above, Kimber would grant Costco the right to display her content.
If you need a template to grant a license to display your content to a third party, check out the Content License Agreement in the shop.
We have Kimber's permission to spotlight her recipe and blog in this post. And, really, go make that chicken. It's. So. Good.
