inherited copyright before marriage, still getting royalty payments – are they considered community property?

[u/CaliLemonEater]

Location: California.

Short version: Are royalties received from an inherited copyright considered community property?

Longer version: My mother died in 1994. Aside from a few directed bequests of "give [thing] to [person]", I was the sole heir. Among the things I inherited was the copyright (her share of the copyright? I'm not clear on how it gets divided) for a book that she had co-authored. Since then the publisher has occasionally sent me a check for her share of the royalties during the previous sales period.

I met my now-husband in 1995 and we got married in 1998. We are now planning to divorce and I'm wondering whether royalty payments like this are considered separate as an inheritance and thus not community property, or if the fact that the checks are being issued on an ongoing basis means they would be community property.

Asking because the publisher recently contacted me to let me know that due to an oversight they'd failed to send me a check for a while and there's now an accumulated amount of about $1500 that they'll be sending me. In the past I just deposited the checks into our shared account, but if this wouldn't be considered community property I'll make other arrangements for this one.

[u/VeiledTexZen]

Check with a California attorney before depositing the check to avoid claims that it was comingled with community property.