Standard form for content writers?

Have them sig to legally give you the content

[hdpt00]

I know whomever writes the original contetn owns the copyright (I believe ;-) ), but does anyone use a standard form or legal document saying the contetn may not be duplicated, used anywhere else, sold anywhere else etc. to give to those that you outsource articles too?

I am trying to find a standard document like this, thanks!

[EileenC]

I don't have a standard form to give you, but one rule of thumb is that in the absence of a written contract, it's assumed that only the least restrictive rights pass to the buyer. In other words, if you sell an article to someone and there's no discussion of rights, they theoretically can only use it one time. Of course, buyers often will assume they can use it as much as they want to because they don't understand the issue of rights.

In terms of rights, here's what the value is generally seen as in the print world:
All rights - most costly to buy
First rights - next most costly
First North American rights - third most costly
One-time or reprint rights - least costly

You'll notice that electronic rights are not on there. That's because there's a big debate about it. What does "one time" rights mean on the web? Nobody really knows. When I write articles for print, electronic rights are negotiated for separately. From my point of view as a writer, electronic rights are just as encompassing as all rights, because once an article appears on the web, most editors aren't interested in buying a reprint. Electronic rights hurt the writer's ability to resell reprints. When someone wants electronic rights, I treat it like all rights, and charge accordingly, for that purpose.

I know this doesn't answer your question, but hopefully it will give you an overview of how it works. The bottom line, both buyers and sellers should understand exactly what rights they are selling, and how electronic rights will play out. Will the article be posted online for 90 days, will it be archived for paying subscribers only, or will everyone in the world have access to it forever? All three of those answers would have different ramifications on price if I were the seller.