Publishers often require the services of copyright lawyers whether they need license agreements to be set-up with authors, need to take legal action against persons or institutions who have infringed upon their copyrights or simply need binding contracts.

Since publishers have the responsibility to exploit the intellectual property rights to the benefit of their authors and themselves they often also need to make use of copyright lawyers to help them operate within the legal framework of the Copyright Law whether in printed or electronic media.

Copyright lawyers such as Smith & Van Wyk who are experts on the topic as related to intellectual property laws provide advice regarding questions with which the publishers may be confronted. Since copyrights are automatically assigned to the creator of the work upon materializing the idea, protection against infringement of the copyrights is immediately obtained. If infringement however, does take place, the author of the work must be able to proof that he or she is the owner of the work. Publishers obtain ownership or licensing to use the work and must also be able to proof ownership rights in a court of law when a party is challenged.

Copyright lawyers will be of assistance in the challenge and subsequent litigation process. This also applies to the moral rights of the author which entails the right to claim authorship and to give objection against any modification of the author’s work that will infringe upon his or her right of integrity.