Wednesday, February 27th, 2008...10:13 am
Not Being a Lawyer Catches Up To Me
It’s likely that a story of mine is about to get killed. I probably can’t go into the reasons since it’s not certain and I sold that intellectual property — but naturally, I’m disappointed. Because the subject truly does interest me, I thought about maybe blogging it here instead. Then I thought about the fact that I sold that intellectual property, thus possibly selling my right to blog it as well, and dug out my contract.
As Bill Clinton might say, a lot depends on what the definition of “is” is. That is, even a close reading doesn’t leave me confident about what some of this language means. E.g. I have sold “first periodical rights on an exclusive basis” — but what do we count as a periodical? And if the story is killed by the organization that owns first periodical rights, does that mean it’ll never see the light of day? Similarly, could posting information to a blog be considered syndicating it? The problem is likely my ignorance; I’m not blaming whoever wrote it. Some of this may be stuff you just happen to know if you’re a copyright lawyer, or have taken a copyrights class. Or maybe you’d have to hash it out expensively in court. It’s easier for me to imagine how a jury might react to the word “periodical” than to the word “syndicate,” but because I’m not a law school grad, I’m not clear on how an intellectual property lawyer might define either.
In any case, it’s not worth the risk. I might go look up these terms or buy a detailed book for my own education, but I doubt I’ll be blogging this unless the editor gives me a written thumbs-up. But thinking it through is a good reminder that a little knowledge is sometimes more frustrating than none at all.
4 Comments
February 29th, 2008 at 6:39 am
This is not covered in Copyright classes.
You could probably just ask their permission, yeah?
Do you have access to LexisNexis or Westlaw? This shouldn’t be TOO difficult a thing to research to see if it’s come up before.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Hmmm… no state law cases use the phrase “first periodical rights on an exclusive basis” or “first periodical rights.” You might be out of luck.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Ok, here we go:
Best Medium Pub. Co. v. National Insider, 259 F.Supp. 433 (N.D.Ill 1966)
“The crux of the controversy seems to be the extent of the title which plaintiff acquired when it purchased articles from free lance writers for a few hundred dollars, and published the articles in its tabloid. Plaintiff insists that it purchased full title. Defendant maintains that under the custom and usages of the trade, plaintiff got only the right to first printing, and after that publication plaintiff’s rights were exhausted and the author was free to sell the article to others for republication.”
You’re able to access cases, right? Maybe that one’s worth a read. It’s actually about a purchase where there was no stated list of rights, so it’ll be a different situation from yours, but it would be not a terrible point to start researching from.
Ok, that’s all the looking stuff up I’m going to do today.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Damn. Please don’t do research just for my little contracts!
As you may or may not know, free caselaw-search services keep popping up online. I’ll dig a few up if you like.
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