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Authors

What is an author? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, an author is described as “The writer of a literary work”, “One who writes as a Profession”, or “One who originates or creates something”. Another definition of an author is “one who sets forth written statements” and “the person who originates or gives existence to anything. These definitions came from the Oxford English Dictionary. Other dictionaries may vary a little but the basic definition is there.

There are copyright laws to protect authors and their writings. If the author does not want their works copied, they have the protection of these copyright laws. When someone writes something, it should be in their own words or they should acknowledge where their information came from if they quote a certain passage of another author. These copyright laws are what determines who the author is and also protects them. The United States Copyright Office provides this protection to authors in the United States under the title 17, U. S. Code. Of course the author has to provide proof that they are indeed the original author of any works in question. These laws pertain to novels, music, poetry, and any other written works from an individual.

If you have written a story, poem, or an article, about any subject, you can be considered an author as long as the works are in fact your own writings. There are many different categories of authors. Some of these may be poets, composers, lyricists, novelists, playwrights, journalists, film writers, academic paper writers, creative writing, technical writing, and much more. The author is the one who writes something new for the first time, from their own mind and not from copying someone else’s work.

In America there is the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (known as ASCAP). This organization is a non-profit organization which will protect the rights of the members of the society. Musicians can rest assured that their original music works are protected because the society monitors public performances of their music and they compensate them for them. The society charges a licensing fee from the users of music which is created by their members, and the fees then go to the members as royalties. Statistics show that in 2005 the ASCAP collected over $750 million for licensing fees and gave $646 million to their members, and the rest was operating expenses. Other organizations known as BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated, in the United States) and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (in Europe) also work in a similar way to protect their members. In the UK, the authors have the protection of the Society of Authors.