DraperJC
09-03-2007, 11:33 AM
Many writers begin their careers with a simple passion to write. As things progress, some writers wish to see their work published and that’s where things become interesting. Once you leave the realm of writing for yourself, you enter the realm of writing for publication. In order to most effectively do that a whole industry has developed and if you want to tap into that industry, you have to play by their rules. Those rules revolve around something called rights. This article will help define those rights and tell you how they are used and what it all means.
The concept of rights for the written work descends from the most basic tenets of property ownership and the right to control your property. What you become the owner of when you write something is a copyright. Circular 1 from the U.S. Copyright Office defines copyright as a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States for original works of authorship. That protection extends to literary, dramatic, musical and certain other intellectual works. Two things are most important here; first, the copyright is created the moment an original work is placed in a fixed form (i.e. it makes its way from your head to a storage device) and second, the owner of the copyright controls the permission to reproduce, display, distribute for sale, and produce derivative works.
A brief mention of ‘work for hire’ should be made here. It’s the only time the ownership of a written work does not belong to the author. If you are employed by a company or otherwise contracted to write material for them, say a training manual or an instruction booklet, then you do not own the rights to whatever you produce. Most of these situations are spelled out ahead of time (but you’d be surprised…) so be sure to read all employment contracts.
As I said before, the publication industry has devised ways for you to transfer permission to do certain things with your copyrighted work. Your basic right to ownership can be broken up into other rights and sold to whomever is willing and able. A good book that I recommend for all beginning writers is ‘The Law (In Plain English) for Writers’ by DuBoff and Krages. It goes into some detail about rights and I refer to it here. As far as magazine publications go rights are normally divided into All Rights, One-time Publication Rights, and Serial Rights. Another set of rights that are becoming more popular is Electronic Rights. When you sell All Rights you transfer ownership of the work and everything that that entails to someone else. The work is no longer yours. Period. One-time Rights are also simple to understand. You are giving someone permission to publish your work one time in whatever format they desire. Serial Rights are most readily identified with magazines. According to DuBoff and Krages, Serial Rights can be either First-serial Rights or Second-serial Rights. Again, these are fairly easy to understand. First-serial Rights are by far the most common rights asked for and normally called First North American Serial Rights. This is the right to publish something for the first time ever in some kind of periodical before it is published anywhere else. This leads directly to a discussion of Second-serial Rights which should be thought of as reprint rights. The work has appeared in another format for whatever agreed upon time and now can be published somewhere else. Our last rights to examine are Electronic Rights. These have come into being with the creation of electronic publishing. They allow for the publication of a work on the internet and are usually temporary in nature. Since they are new, the law is still evolving for them.
Remember that the author controls all these rights. They are sold through means of contract. Although this is not a class on contract law, it is an important topic to cover for your own protection. A contract can be implied, oral, or written. An implied contract is the weakest and hardest to prove from a legal standpoint. Nothing is said or written and the contract is just assumed to exist based on the actions of all participants. An oral contract is better and is more easily enforced. Actual spoken agreement is reached and acknowledged by all concerned. However, the strongest form of contract and the type most often used for anything of any importance (like maybe your writing career) is the written contract. Everything is spelled out in black and white and authorized by fixing a signature to a document. Contract law is very strong in the United States. It bears saying a second time: Read what you sign.
Hopefully now this article has shed some light on where rights come from, what they are, and how you sell them. For the most part you need to pay attention to what the various markets are offering to buy. Beware of selling all rights to something you’ve created because that would include the right to produce sequels and other derivative works. Make sure that contracts say what you think they say and if you think an implied contract might be forming then send an email or make a phone call to firm things up. If you really do want to pursue writing as a profession then you are expected to be a professional and study everything involved with your field. Best of luck to you all.
The concept of rights for the written work descends from the most basic tenets of property ownership and the right to control your property. What you become the owner of when you write something is a copyright. Circular 1 from the U.S. Copyright Office defines copyright as a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States for original works of authorship. That protection extends to literary, dramatic, musical and certain other intellectual works. Two things are most important here; first, the copyright is created the moment an original work is placed in a fixed form (i.e. it makes its way from your head to a storage device) and second, the owner of the copyright controls the permission to reproduce, display, distribute for sale, and produce derivative works.
A brief mention of ‘work for hire’ should be made here. It’s the only time the ownership of a written work does not belong to the author. If you are employed by a company or otherwise contracted to write material for them, say a training manual or an instruction booklet, then you do not own the rights to whatever you produce. Most of these situations are spelled out ahead of time (but you’d be surprised…) so be sure to read all employment contracts.
As I said before, the publication industry has devised ways for you to transfer permission to do certain things with your copyrighted work. Your basic right to ownership can be broken up into other rights and sold to whomever is willing and able. A good book that I recommend for all beginning writers is ‘The Law (In Plain English) for Writers’ by DuBoff and Krages. It goes into some detail about rights and I refer to it here. As far as magazine publications go rights are normally divided into All Rights, One-time Publication Rights, and Serial Rights. Another set of rights that are becoming more popular is Electronic Rights. When you sell All Rights you transfer ownership of the work and everything that that entails to someone else. The work is no longer yours. Period. One-time Rights are also simple to understand. You are giving someone permission to publish your work one time in whatever format they desire. Serial Rights are most readily identified with magazines. According to DuBoff and Krages, Serial Rights can be either First-serial Rights or Second-serial Rights. Again, these are fairly easy to understand. First-serial Rights are by far the most common rights asked for and normally called First North American Serial Rights. This is the right to publish something for the first time ever in some kind of periodical before it is published anywhere else. This leads directly to a discussion of Second-serial Rights which should be thought of as reprint rights. The work has appeared in another format for whatever agreed upon time and now can be published somewhere else. Our last rights to examine are Electronic Rights. These have come into being with the creation of electronic publishing. They allow for the publication of a work on the internet and are usually temporary in nature. Since they are new, the law is still evolving for them.
Remember that the author controls all these rights. They are sold through means of contract. Although this is not a class on contract law, it is an important topic to cover for your own protection. A contract can be implied, oral, or written. An implied contract is the weakest and hardest to prove from a legal standpoint. Nothing is said or written and the contract is just assumed to exist based on the actions of all participants. An oral contract is better and is more easily enforced. Actual spoken agreement is reached and acknowledged by all concerned. However, the strongest form of contract and the type most often used for anything of any importance (like maybe your writing career) is the written contract. Everything is spelled out in black and white and authorized by fixing a signature to a document. Contract law is very strong in the United States. It bears saying a second time: Read what you sign.
Hopefully now this article has shed some light on where rights come from, what they are, and how you sell them. For the most part you need to pay attention to what the various markets are offering to buy. Beware of selling all rights to something you’ve created because that would include the right to produce sequels and other derivative works. Make sure that contracts say what you think they say and if you think an implied contract might be forming then send an email or make a phone call to firm things up. If you really do want to pursue writing as a profession then you are expected to be a professional and study everything involved with your field. Best of luck to you all.