Everything a writer needs to know about the law.

This accessible, reader-friendly handbook will be an invaluable resource for authors, agents, and editors in navigating the legal landscape of the contemporary publishing industry. Drawing on a wealth of experience in legal scholarship and publishing, Jacqueline D. Lipton provides a useful legal guide for writers whatever their levels of expertise or categories of work (fiction, nonfiction, or academic). Through case studies and hypothetical examples, Law and Authors addresses issues of copyright law, including explanations of fair use and the public domain; trademark and branding concerns for those embarking on a publishing career; laws that impact the ways that authors might use social media and marketing promotions; and privacy and defamation questions that writers may face. Although the book focuses on American law, it highlights key areas where laws in other countries differ from those in the United States. Law and Authors will prepare every writer for the inevitable and the unexpected.

Professor Lipton has previously held faculty positions at the University of Houston Law Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, The University of Akron School of Law, the University of Nottingham School of Law, and Monash University Law School. She has also visited previously at the University of Florida and Melbourne University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in commercial and finance law in Australia.

Her scholarship focuses on law and digital technology, as well as law and the creative arts.  She is the co-author of multiple editions of a leading cyberspace casebook (Cyberspace Law: Cases and Materials, (with Professor Raymond S. R. Ku) and the leading casebook on The Criminal Law of Intellectual Property (with Professors G. Moohr and I. Manta). She also authored Rethinking Cyberlaw (Edward Elgar, 2015); Internet Domain Names, Trademarks and Free Speech (Edward Elgar, 2010) and Security Over Intangible Property (LBC Thompson, 2000). 

She has published in leading law reviews in the United States, Europe and Australia, including the Northwestern University Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Wake Forest Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, UC Davis Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Florida Law Review, Maryland Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Monash University Law Review, and Singapore Journal of Legal Studies.

She is the founder and director of Authography LL.C., a company focused on assisting authors and creative artists understand their business and legal rights.

She has taught a variety of domestic and international commercial and intellectual property courses including International Intellectual Property, Comparative Digital Transactions Law, Workplace Privacy Law, Trademarks and Unfair Competition Law, Cyberlaw, and Trade Secrets Law.

Education 

• PhD, LL.M., Cambridge University
• PhD, Griffith University
• MFA, Vermont College of Fine Arts
• LLM, Grad. Cert. (Computing), Monash University
• LLB (Hons), B.A. (Psych), University of Melbourne
• BA (Hons) (Drama), La Trobe University

Source: University of Pittsburgh