The Best Things in Life are Free: Copyright and Me

Not much these days is completely free, but copyright is both free and automatic. Copyright involves your moral authority to assert that you are the creator of your work.

In Australia copyright lasts for seventy years after the death of the author. So if you have written that bestseller, make sure you have made arrangements in your will so that these rights are appropriately managed.

As the copyright holder you can reasonably expect that others will seek your permission to quote from or use excerpts of your work. You should consider registering with the Copyright Agency http://www.copyright.com.au/  to enable others to appropriately seek and pay for licensing/using your work.

Alternately you may wish to make your work public and free for anyone to use. If this is your preference, consider using Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org.au/