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5.0 Rights Protected by Copyright

By Lesley Ellen Harris, Esq.

5.1 Question: My organization publishes a print newsletter for circulation to our clients. We have been publishing this newsletter for 10 years. The articles are written by freelance writers. Five years ago, we instituted our first written agreements with these writers to ensure that we had electronic rights in the articles in addition to print rights. We are now posting the entire newsletter, every issue since its inception, on our Web site. Do we have the right to do this?
Answer: You have the print and electronic rights in all newsletters published in the past five years. However, without any written or oral agreements (written is always better) for the first five years of publication, you should return to the freelance authors to obtain electronic rights for posting those earlier newsletters on your Web site. For any articles in which you are unable to obtain electronic rights, omit those articles from Web site publication. (2006-3)

Full post as published by Copyrightlaws.com on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).