Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

If this was not a gift, you might infringe your ex-boyfriend's copyrights. And, you might also be infringing his rights of publicity in his name and signature.

Giving someone an original creative work (painting, photograph, manuscript, architectural plans, etc.) does not necessarily imply giving them the copyright. Intellectual property laws are concerned with ownership of the right to control and profit from one's work, and not so much with fraudulent claims of authorship. Even if you label copies of the manuscript 100�curately, making copies may violate copyright. You can sell the original, that's yours; but neither you nor whomever you sell it to can make copies without at least potentially infringing. If you could establish that you were given the copyright as well as the ms., it'd be a different matter. You also need to consider publicity and privacy rights issues as Mr. Prout says.

There are two types of property here, and you should understand the difference. One is personal property--in the form of the physical manuscript. The other is intellectual property--the content of the manuscript.

If the physical manuscript was a gift to you, it is yours to do with as you choose. However, that is true only for the original copy you were given. You may sell it, just as you could sell any other piece of personal property you were given. But you may not make copies (such as a copy to keep) or sell additional copies.

The contents of the manuscript, that is, the story, belong the author and you may not sell that. For example, you could not authorize someone to publish the work or do anything else with it.

The type of manuscript you are referring to might be of interest to a collector or a research library, for example. But a publisher would not be able to do anything with it without the author's permission.

Unless you are adding your own commentary or other private material to the sale, I doubt it could be construed to infringe the author's privacy or other rights.

I would strongly suggest that you contact an attorney before you sell, and that you make clear to any potential buyer that this is a collector's item only.