Clauses to include in your Copyright License Agreement

It is better to have something in excess… than to lack an important clause in your copyright licence agreement

We would like to point out that there is no standard copyright license agreement. Since the term has been introduced a few centuries ago, it has evolved significantly. What is more important, with the advent of Internet and communication technologies, it has been changing very rapidly.

Now, do you wonder what to include in your copyright license agreement? Do you think a longer agreement is better than short one?  It is always better to follow our advice. If you are not sure whether to include a clause or not and you think that it might become important at some point of time, please include it! Trust your instincts, if you think that it is or might become important, it probably is important and you will eventually regret not including it. Moreover, you do not lose anything if you have a longer copyright license agreement.  In general, a good agreement is the one that serves the purposes which you would like it to have and protects you from illegal use of your original idea. There is no recipe – some copyright license agreements can be as long as 30 pages, others contain only a few sentences. Some will be in very plain language, while others can be in very specific technological language. However, there are several clauses which are logical to be included such as:

Preamble – a brief introduction outlining the agreement.
Definitions – any details with special meaning are mentioned and described here.