Forum Moderators: not2easy
So, I was thinking that including a writer's byline might help in negotiations (ie writer gets more fame but less fortune) or could be useful if a web publisher really wants to develop individual personalities on the site, or whatever...
...but here's my question: how do you make sure your authors don't go and re-publish their work somewhere else (especially problematic on the web, considering duplicate content)?
What does that work-for-hire contract look like?
Something like:
yes, your byline is on your article--no, you don't own it;
yes, you can cite it in your portfolio--no, you can't publish it anywhere else.
Has anyone participated in such a contract? What's a good example text for this type of contract? What else is involved?
The journals have always had authors sign transfer of copyright statements, making it clear that the authors know they're transferring the copyright completely to the publisher (except those authors who legally can't, such as federal employees). There are also other things the authors have to state, including that the work hasn't been published elsewhere.
But eventually it got so ridiculous (even by medical journal standards!) to have authors needing to formally request permission from the journal before they could do anything with their published content, that some now grant specific rights back to the author.
That is, the author still signs copyright completely over to the journal, but then the journal-as copyright holder-allows the author to do specific things without getting permission from the journal each time; the usual example is re-using a table or picture that's been published, as long as the original article is credited as the source.
The journal I'm most familiar with that does this is Cancer. You can find them through the "publications" links at the American Cancer Society website; then check their authors instructions for the transfer of copyright agreement. What rights you assign back to the author will be different from theirs, but it might give you an idea as to how they set it up.
Edited to add: In this situation, of course, authors always get bylines. This is publish or perish territory; if a journal didn't give bylines, no one would submit articles!
Ideally the contract will put up a glass case around the writing. Authors can point to it, look at it, show other people--they just can't touch it.
I suppose that since I know what I'm looking for I should just write up a contract and run it by a lawyer. Or I'll just keep looking around...
That's interesting to learn about the evolution of copyright agreement for medical journals. Even so, though, the cancer journal agreement that I found doesn't really say anything about granting use of certain pieces of the article as explained previously:
the journal-as copyright holder-allows the author to do specific things without getting permission from the journal each time; the usual example is re-using a table or picture that's been published, as long as the original article is credited as the source.
Hmm. How could a simple webmaster use this type of clause...? Okay, like, if an author were to submit photos along with an article, then the contract could say:
"I give you permission to use the photo you took (the one that I own now) in limited circumstances, but don't ever duplicate the writing, especially on the web."
Anyway, it'd be nice to see some contracts with that kinduva clause actually included.
