Expert: Mark David Gerson - 2/13/2008

Question
Ten years ago, I queried a well-respected national legal publication regarding a 3,000 word article I had written. They expressed interest and asked me to forward the piece for potential publication, requesting that I first edit the article to about half its size to meet their word count limitations. I forwarded the article without editing it and never heard from them again (I was not surprised since I had not reduced the article's length).  

About a year later, I found to my surprise that the publication had in fact published my entire article, splitting it into two-part series.  The article not only appeared in the printed publication but on several legal  web sites as well.    

I want to sell that article to another interested market.  The original publisher is claiming full copyright to my article.  I never signed a contract or entered into any type of agreement, oral or otherwise, with them regarding the publication of my work.  Was my act of sending the article an implied consent to publish and convey all rights? Do I have any rights to the article?

Answer
Dear Sally,

It's a hard question to answer without knowing more details. Most publications don't take on all rights to a submission, but some certainly do.

You might do some research on their submission requirements to see what they say about which rights they acquire.

You might also check this web site, http://anotherealm.com/prededitors which lists warnings about publications who are abusing writers' rights.

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that unless you have something in writing from them that claims ownership of your submission or unless the publication's submission information claims that they are purchasing all rights, you may still retain some rights.

Good luck,
Mark David Gerson
http://calltowrite.com