A New Writer's Guide to Understanding What Rights They've Sold

New Writers often do not or misunderstand the rights sold to the places they sell their work to. A first time writer is often more thrilled about making a first sale and gaining validation in their profession than they are about the legal aspects of their craft. The artistic and metaphysical parts of writing cannot be ignored, but a new writer does not do himself a favor by not at least becoming familiar with the legal aspects of their profession.

When selling a piece you must understand what rights are available to sell and which rights you are selling. As the creator of the piece you hold all of the copyrights to it until you make a sale. Basically, you can sell the rights as exclusive to the buying party, first-time rights, one-time rights, and occasionally a number of reprint rights.

The first time rights to a piece, like the virginity of an individual can only be given up one time. Once they are sold or given up they cannot be offered again. One-time reprint rights however can be sold as long as the author retains the rights to the piece. (Basically, think of selling first time rights as the very special first time with someone special and one-time rights as a "one-night" stand.)

Exclusive rights mean you are giving up all rights to your work. Occasionally you may be able to contact the owner to get them to resign one-time rights to you. For writers on Associated Content this is often the case when an author wants a piece they have written to appear in a local newspaper or other print media outlet. Many time publishers will assign the copyrights back to the author, but you should check whatever contacts exist and be absolutely certain this is the case before preceding. When in doubt, it is probably wise to contact the person who you sold the piece to to get it in print or on the web.

Many people mistakenly assume that it is okay to take an article from another site as long as they attribute it to the original author. While there are places that allow you to download such articles for content, this is often not the case. Before taking an article in its entirety if you are not the author, make absolutely certain you are not stealing the piece. Several AC writers have found pieces they have written here ending up on Blogspot blogs and AC has not sold the article. For one thing, the person stealing the article is taking potential page views away from the AC author by doing this and secondly, the terms of use on the free content sites usually require you to link back to the original article. Quoting a part of the article and linking to it is "fair use," but copying the article in its entirety is not.

By understanding the legal rights to the work a writer sells he can avoid legal troubles down the road and if the writer is not sure, he probably should get in touch with who he suspects holds the current copyrights before making another sale of the same piece.