Greg and Tony, I absolutely agree with your comments concerning the ethics of sending the same article to more than one periodical at the same time. The editors have to trust the authors will not do that and violating that trust will have consequences. I can see publishing the same article in another periodical several years later (the original might no longer exist, for example), HOWEVER I would include a cover letter explaining that this article was previously published in xyz magazine in June 2001 and would include a copy of the original article with my submission. The new article should not be a word for word copy of the original but would include new content. There would also have to be a reason for submitting it again. Perhaps there has been an advance in products thus providing a better way to accomplish what the original article covered.

Marty Young
San Diego, CA

I have been reading this thread with interest but the answer still seems murky. But then that could be because the law is flexible. So let me ask a question and hopefully there is a clear answer. Let us say that I wrote an article for a current publication (which I have and am waiting for it to be published).

Do I retain the copyright or does that vary between magazines? If I retain the copyright then in theory I could submit the article to another magazine right now for publication. That, to me, seems unethical and probably would cause me to not have any future articles to be considered. Not a very good idea. If I retain the copyright then it would appear that after a reasonable amount of time, I could update the article and publish it again. But I am more interested in the next question.

Which copyright supersedes article ownership? Is it the magazine you first published in or the company that the magazine reassigned all articles to? The second company could be more strict on articles they own and not allow the author access to anything he wrote. Perhaps even publish the article again without asking permission or possibly not reimbursing the original author.

This has possibly been settled a courtroom already.

Marty
San Diego, CA

Doug;

Hundman told me the same thing that Steve was told by RMC. I hold the rights to my article to publish again.

The compressing of said article and miniscule photos were what gave birth to TKM, but that is another story.......

Elden Gatwood

Greg did you retain copyright of your articles that Hundman published? If not, and you were compensated, they are most likely the property of the publisher, and by transfer, thus property of the C&OHS.

While I did not write anything for Hundman, and do not know his author agreements, I did write for Railroad Model Craftsman when published by Carstens Publications INC. I recall the checks from Carstens had a clause on the back stating when I endorsed the check (ie to cash/deposit) I was signing over ownership of the article. This meant Carstens could do anything they wanted, including reprinting/publishing, and I could not prevent them. At the time Bill Schaumburg advised me to retain copyright of my material by including a copyright notation on all work submitted. This permits me to use my work as I wish.

I think this practice is pretty standard in the publishing world. I undertand Kalmbach "buys" articles, and sometimes they sit for years before getting published, if ever. By paying for the article, Kalmbach becomes the owner and the author is prevented from publishing elsewhere.

Perhaps someone in the publishing industry or legal field can speak more directly to this matter. But if you did not retain copyright, you may not have control over material Hundman Publishing printed. That is my understanding.

Doug Harding

It would be awfully nice if he were to draw what’s on the original drawings – stuff like dimensions and/or steel shape and weight -- instead of assuming everything was going to be used exactly as he made models – sheet of paper with un-dimensioned drawing at HO scale where one lays out styrene of the approximate size – or oversize -- for gluing.  As they were done all of his drawings – and most in MM from others -- are without value to me and in all likelihood w/o value for anyone trying to make something at Shapeways.

Dave Nelson