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Topic: competing markets?
| Author | Message |
| paula_vergara | Posted – 9/24/2007 2:16:47 PM | show profile Hi, I am interested in pitching my recently published article to other markets, and I can't seem to wrap my head around which markets are competing. If you publish an article in a regional sports magazine, and you have an opportunity to publish the same article in a national magazine (either sports related or not), is that competing? I know that when you sign a contract, you are giving away certain rights to publish elsewhere, but another question is how "different" does an article need to be to be called a completely different article from the one originally published? I didn't sign a contract for the first article, so legally, it's fair game, but I don't want to step on any toes. Thanks. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 9/24/2007 4:48:45 PM | show profile If you didn't sign a contract then the original publication purchased only one-time rights, and what you do with the piece from this point forward is none of their business. Contracts can differ significantly, and whether your rights are diminished in regards to reusing material depends on the contract. Some call for the original publication to be mentioned; some buy all rights meaning you have no more rights to use the piece than anyone else. The minimum rights you can give away is one-time rights: meaning the pub has the right to publish the article once, but you make no guarantees someone else will not publish it first. The question now is what publications are willing to look at reprint rights. Whether a publication views any pub as competing is in the eye of the beholder. If you are trying to sell reprint rights, you can just sent it to anyone, tell them where it originally ran, and let them decide. There really isn't a standard for how much an article needs to be rewritten to be considered new again. I've heard some people say an article needs to be 90% new, some say 50%, and others say if you just rewrite the lead that's enough. Others have said you can't just rewrite a couple of paragraphs and need to "substantially" alter the article, though they won't say what that means. There is no hard-and-fast rule, and as far as I know this issue has never been decided in a court of law. Practically, how much I would rewrite, and whether I would even tell the editor if the piece had run elsewhere would depend on the contract; the size and prominence of the publications involved; and to what degree I cared if I ever dealth with them again. I have, for instance, changed one sentence in a piece and sold it as new to a little regional pub that I didn't care if I ever did business with again. That was years ago, and I haven't. -- I am interested in pitching my recently published article to other markets, and I can't seem to wrap my head around which markets are competing. If you publish an article in a regional sports magazine, and you have an opportunity to publish the same article in a national magazine (either sports related or not), is that competing? I know that when you sign a contract, you are giving away certain rights to publish elsewhere, but another question is how "different" does an article need to be to be called a completely different article from the one originally published? I didn't sign a contract for the first article, so legally, it's fair game, but I don't want to step on any toes. Thanks.-- |
