Book Publishing Law

WINHELLER Attorneys at Law have been giving advice to foreign book publishing companies for many years, in particular as to all issues of copyright law, publishing law, press law, trademark law, and tax law. In case you intend to publish a book in Germany with the help of a German book publishing company, we will assist you particularly with respect to drafting and negotiating all necessary contracts with the German publisher.

We also give advice directly to writers on how to protect their copyrights on a national and international scale and represent their interests when it comes to negotiating agreements with nationally or internationally operating book publishing companies. For many years we also have been specializing in assisting ghostwriters with protecting their legal position towards publishing companies and towards the person in whose name they ghost-write the requested book.

It is essential to us to clearly and thoroughly draft all necessary agreements for our clients. Independent of whether we shall draft “classic” or rather modern forms of publishing and licensing agreements (e.g. for the online media), we will strive to include all your interests in the agreement and also take all current principles of legal practice into account.

We draft and negotiate in particular:

• Agreements for publishing companies
• Agreements for ghostwriters
• Agreements for translators
• Agreements for editors
• Agreements for illustrators
• Licensing agreements
• Agreements on the usage as audio book
• Agreements on the usage of books in new media (CDs, ebooks, online magazines, etc.)
• Agreements on filmizations of books and screen adaptations
• Agreements on dramatizations of books for stage productions

We will be pleased to also assist our clients with our firm’s expertise in tax law matters. We will provide you with adequate solutions for all tax issues that may arise in connection with drafting your agreements – no matter if only German tax law is concerned or if you are in an international tax law situation.

Publishing companies, writers and ghostwriters need to be present on the internet. WINHELLER Attorneys at Law are specialized in analyzing their clients’ websites in regards of potential legal issues and in making them watertight. Please refer to our site Internet Law – how to make your website legally secure for further information.

Your contact person for all issues related to book publishing law is Atty. Dr. Christian Seyfert. In all matters of tax law, Atty. Stefan Winheller will be your contact person. Please contact us by e-mail (info@winheller.com) or by phone (+49 69 76 75 77 80).