Copyright fee is a form of remuneration paid by publishing house to authors, which generally needs to be turned over to tax authorities.
Copyright fees, also known as royalties, are the monetary benefits that creators or copyright holders of intellectual property receive from other users of their intellectual property. People who use intellectual property rights such as copyrights, franchises, copyrights, trademarks and patents may have to pay royalties. Generally speaking, in order to obtain the right to copy or perform a work, money will be paid to the inventor or creator of the work as a royalty. Copyright royalties are a kind of income of copyright owners. In most countries, this income must be taxed in the form of withholding income tax.
The standard and payment method of copyright fee need to be determined by the copyright owner and user of the work through oral or written agreement. If it is a book, in general, before the work is officially published, the publishing house must pay part of the copyright fee to the author. This part of royalties is called prepaid royalties. Royalties in advance can be paid after the contract is signed, the work is submitted or the sample book is printed.
If it is a book, the unit price of the book is multiplied by a certain percentage and then multiplied by the sales volume or printing volume of the book. This percentage is called royalty rate, and its size reflects the level of royalty standard. No matter in most countries or internationally, there is no uniform standard for royalties. The determination of edition tax rate generally takes into account the author's popularity, the type, quality and print run of the work, the potential market demand and the exclusive degree of the rights granted, and the author, copyright owner or his agent reach an agreement with the users of the work through consultation.
legal ground
Article 2 of the Copyright Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) These Provisions are only applicable to written works published in paper media. Article 3 Unless otherwise agreed between the copyright owner and the publisher, publishing houses, newspapers and magazines shall pay remuneration to the copyright owner in accordance with these Provisions when publishing written works. Article 4 Payment of remuneration may be made by printing the basic remuneration, royalty or lump sum payment. Basic remuneration plus printing remuneration means that the publishing house pays a certain remuneration to the author according to the number of words in the work (that is, basic remuneration), and then pays a certain proportion of basic remuneration to the copyright owner according to the number of copies of the book (that is, printing remuneration). When a work is reprinted, only a small amount of remuneration is paid, not the basic remuneration.