[Woodcarver] Ownership of published articles

[Ivan Whillock Studio]

To explain the ownership of authored material, let me describe it from the
point of view of the writer.  When you write an article, you own all rights
to that article.  Nobody can do anything with it without your permission.
If you decide to make some money off it,  you can sell some or all of those
rights to a magazine.  If you sell all of the rights, the publishers can do
anything they want with it.  Publish it, not publish it.  Make a video from
it, republish it in a book, etc.  Selling all of the rights means  that  the
author gives up the opportunity to benefit from all subsequent uses of the
article.  Therefore, most experienced writers sell only specific rights to
the publisher--"First North American Rights," for example.  That means the
publisher has first use of the article and can publish it once in a magazine
in North America.  After that,  the author owns all of the rights again.
Then, if the publisher wants to come out with a compilation of published
articles, or use it in another way, he would have to get permission from the
author again, and likely negotiate another fee.    Most freelance writers
state the rights they are selling on the first page of their manuscripts. If
the material is accepted, then a contract between the author and the
publisher specifies what rights are being purchased, whether they are all
rights, first North American rights, international rights, or other
specified rights to the material.

Legal protections extend to sales as well.   When someone buys a book or
magazine, they are not buying all rights to the material.  They are buying
the rights the author and/or publisher specifies on the copyright page.

However, those notices don't usually specify the long list of rights that
ARE being sold "you can make carvings with the patterns, line your bird cage
with it, etc."--but they usually specify which rights are NOT included in
the purchase of the book or magazine.  "No part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any for or by
any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise
without the written permission of the publisher."  Most of that lawyer
language is designed to protect the author's right to profit from his
efforts, without having to compete against pirated versions of his own work.

As you can see, the rights to material in the Mallet, though now out of
print, could still be owned by the authors.  I know I still own all the
rights to all the material I sent them.

Ivan Whillock Studio
122 NE 1st Avenue
Faribault, MN 55021
Visit my website at
 http://www.whillock.com
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http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=ivancarve