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

Marty

It did happen between the two magazine we were talking about within the
same publishing month of both by the same author we likely all know.

Both editors regretted publishing it and they never published his work in
their magazine again.

The lack of ethics lead to the use of business ethics and that was the end
of that story. I was in Bob's office when the issue came up and the resolve
was handed down.

Let your conscience be your guide... Respect is a hard thing to gain and
easily lost.

Greg Martin

Eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it.
Norman Maclean


In a message dated 6/15/2017 7:33:47 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
STMFC@... writes:

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

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