Should I retain copyrights?

[bmessick]

Hi All,

I'm new to this forum and relatively new to freelance writing. I have a quick question for other freelancers as to holding copyrights.

I had a potential client ask me the other day as to who holds the copyright to any work I produce. He would like for me to write some web site copy and a few marketing articles (about 250 words each). I didn't really think I should keep the copyrights or by-line on some small articles. I just asked if I could use his name as a referral for other clients.

Is there any other reason I should keep the copyrights to such articles or web copy other than for portfolio samples? If he agrees to give me a testimonial, then why would I need those pieces as samples, especially if I already have samples?

Just looking for some feedback on this. Thanks!

[Kay King]

When I write for clients, the copyright transfers to them when they pay me. That's stated when I begin writing for them and it doesn't change.

They are hiring me to write copy that will then become THEIR copy so I retain no ownership rights to it once it is paid for.

kay

[Raydal]

It all depends on the YOUR agreement with the
client. When I ghost-write an ebook I retain
the right to sell it myself even though the
book carries the client's name. But this is
stated in the agreement. If the client wants
all rights to the product then the price goes
up.

For copywriting, I retain the right to use the
sales copy in promotion of my services, so
that I could claim that I wrote the letter and
not that I would use the letter myself, which
wouldn't make much sense.

-Ray Edwards

[TracyNeedham]

Normally, the agreement for the things you're writing is what's referred to as "work for hire"--you do the work, they get the copyright once you've been paid in full. That's very standard and most companies expect that.

Now if they don't have the money you're asking for and you think it's something you could sell to others, I suppose you could (though I haven't tried it yet) give them--I forget if this is the exact right term or not--first use rights instead for a discounted fee. Like it sounds, they get to be the first ones to use it, but you retain the copyright and can sell it elsewhere.

With publications, it varies and the publication usually sets the rights they're buying.

I don't put anything in my agreement about using their work as samples but I do. Maybe that's something I need to look into, the only time I know that people run into problems with that is if they sign a non-disclosure agreement or if it's a big publication.

Ray's got an interesting approach for the ebooks though (one I'll keep in mind Ray, thanks!) and one you could potentially leverage. ie Here's the price with the rights for me to sell it too, but here's the price if you don't want me to be able to sell it too (which is much more).

They may just go with the higher priced option, which gets you more immediate money.

Now, even if you sell all rights, you can still rewrite that piece with a different slant and sell it to someone else who doesn't compete with the original buyer.

Writers who freelance for the big pubs do it all the time. Because at that point, it's a different piece--you're just leveraging the info you collected for the first one. Especially since you may have collected more info than you needed anyway...

Just a thought. But yes, unless otherwise stated, what you write for your clients would be work for hire and the copyright would transfer to them.

[Greg Wildermuth]

Agree with all said... one thing though is that I always ask my clients if they don't mind me using the work as samples. I don't think they'd ever find out if I did and didn't tell them, but it is their copyright and I wouldn't want any trouble about it.

[AlexR]

I've been a web developer for over ten years. So far haven't seen a need to retain copyright on any copy on a web site.

Our contract states that the client holds copyright to all written content but on a few occasions we have retained copyright of images which we purchased.

We also state that we reserve the right to use the site as an advertising point in our portfolio. This can be as just a static image or a link to the customer's web site.

Generally, I don't think that copyright on website text is really required. You could certainly copy it to a swipe file if you think that your copy is brilliant, but I wouldn't re-use copy that I had developed for another client; not because of the legal aspect, but more for pride and individuality of the work we produce.

You don't need to re-use anything that you have done...a few minutes with a thesaurus will have a whole article/page rewritten with original copy.

Alex

[IdeaLady]

Under copyright law, the creator is the owner unless there is an agreement that says otherwise.

Clients might want to own all rights to the copy. In that case, they would hire you with a work for hire agreement or otherwise have all rights to the copy transferred to them.

You may instead transfer some rights to the client. For example, my book cover designer retained the copyright on a cover she did for me. However, she gave me the right to print as many books as I wanted, and to use the cover any way I chose in promotion of the book. So I could use the cover on my website, and on post cards, posters, t-shirts or anything else. The copyright, though, stays with her.