Who owns the copyright to the webcopy-- client or copywriter?

When you write up the contract for a copywriting project, I'm curious to know who owns the finalized copy for the project-- client or copywriter?

In web design, it's usually the designer who owns the design but in legalese terms, we are letting the client borrow it. At least, that is how I've seen some contracts done for web design.

 

unless specified by a contract ether party can claim they own it until settled by a court

 

Copyright is actually a bundle of rights. Who owns and can do what depends on what your contract says and what's agreed to.

 

Some contracts, like in work-for-hire situations, grant the client the copyright. Some clients prepare a second document called a copyright assignment, which grants them the full rights to the work. You just need to read the contract carefully before signing if you're the contractor, and you need to craft is carefully, preferably with a lawyer's help, if you're the client.

 

When a client pays for the work and the writer accepts payment the rights to the webcopy is owned by the buyer.

 

That's not true unless it's specified in the contract either as a work-for-hire agreement or a copyright assignment. A buyer doesn't automatically get the rights without them being signed over in some way.

 

That's correct. There are actually 3 requirements for a work for be under Work for Hire when we are talking about a non-employee relationship such as this.

Most people just know the first one, which is that a new work be commissioned. However, there are two more that must also be met--contract and category.

While the buyer DOES get implied rights of use by commissioning the work, the buyer DOES NOT get exclusive rights and MAY need permission to make derivatives and to use in certain situations.

For instance, let's say you buy an article for YourSite.com from someone without a contract. Now, let's say you decide you want to also use the site at YourNewSite.com. You may need to obtain permission from the writer you bought the article from. This is also true if you plan on using the article for submission.

Also, the writer, who is the co-creator on the project, can use the article as well. Again, unless you have a contract stating all of this.

 

I believe it is matter of a tacit acceptance.

Most writers believe that it's the buyer who gets automatically the rights, mostly because they ignore writers can claim such rights when there is not a contract or written agreement.

 

I was on about the typical copywriting services provided by writers on DP.

 

My clients do not officially own what I write for them until payment is made. They may have the work in their possession, but I never consider the transfer complete until their invoice has been paid.

 

Interesting question.
Even in Web design, Once the client has paid for the work, I consider the final product (compiled code) to be thiers. Although I do not transfer the rights to the code that created the product (uncompiled code).

If you are contracted to write a unique article, what would be the purpose of retaining the copyright. Once paid for you would not have the right to sell it again, so whats the point?

 

There are many reasons to want to retain your copyright:

1. The ability to resell it in other forms (ie if you sell it for a website, you can still include it later in a book, sell it to a print magazine, etc.). Unless your contract says otherwise, you do actually have the right to sell or license something again. If you don't sign a work for hire agreement or otherwise give up full rights in writing (or email, etc., depending on past court decisions), you're generally only "licensing" the work to the client.

2. The ability to use it freely in portfolios (sometimes not permitted, such as with many ghostwritten pieces where you're not allowed to claim any credit).

3. If a new publication medium is developed in the future, we have the ability to use it to further monetize our work.

4. By keeping the copyright and not simply ghostwriting a piece, a writer can demand that they're credited anytime the work appears (such as with a byline). Given, not all types of writing are expected to be credited (press releases, Web copy, etc.).

Basically, any piece of writing carries with it several types of rights. We have the ability to monetize our pieces most effectively by selling appropriate rights to appropriate publications. Very rarely do publishers honestly need all of them. And the problem is that people think we should sell all of them for the price of one... which any smart writer won't do.

 

What a pain. So to keep someone from reselling articles that I have had written I should be getting a contract for each article? If I have to worry about anything I have written resold to a dozen other websites that pretty much takes away any advantage there might be with having someone else write it.

I might have to go back to writing my own copy.

 

The way I look at it. If you are hired to write articles for anyone, you are really a sub-contractor so to speak. My clients receive all the rights to the articles that I write for them hands down. I do not even use them as samples without their permission. I may have bid to get the project, but it was their idea, all I did was write it for them.

 

Sub-contractors are still independent contractors. Unless you sign a work-for-hire or something similar, calling them a sub-contractor doesn't mean anything. If someone is contracting specific articles, especially a lot of them, they should be insisting on a contract.

adac... a contract doesn't have to be for each article... if you order several at once, have them all listed on one contract. Make sure all rights are thoroughly being discussed in emails, just as a backup if that makes you feel better. Most professionals won't write without a contract (as an added protection of the rights they're not licensing, so they can prove it to anyone interested in buying other rights.

There are a few where I don't insist on them personally (like press releases, b/c there's no real copyright issue, b/c I'm granting them the right to publish it and pass rights to publish it to media outlets, bloggers, etc. Email generally suffices, although now that I'm thinking about it, I might draft a standard contract for them in the future. But if it's something that can be repurposed, be more careful. If you want all rights, you'll very likely have to pay significanly more for them. It can be the difference between paying a few hundred for an article to a few thousand. In the case of $5 articles and such, the writers might not honestly care... but do you want to risk it as the client?

 

jhmattern
In a way I think we are talking Apples and Oranges here. You obviously write for Larger companies, likely magazines and print articles.

My clients are all small businesses. To put an article costing several hundred to thousend of dollars on a "Mom and Pop" Business website would be out of the question. Costs have to be justified. An article costing $300.00 would need to, on its own bring in $900 - $1200 of business with in a relativly sort period of time. Usually 4-6 months to be considered cost effective.

Multiply that by the need for 15-20 pages on a "small" website, and this would put way to much burdon on the site. While it may be possible for corporate or national sale sites, it is unlikly for local or regional business. That is why most webmasters like to pay $20 -$100 for an article. (some resort to $5)

For that amount I expect the writer will spend 1-2 hours researching and writting the article. If the topic is too complex to be done in that time period I would expect to pay more. That means they would make $20 - $50 an hour for writing, that I can justify.

I do expect though, when I have contracted for a unique article, that it remains unique and is not automatically resold over and over. When used on websites, if they only resell it once, that makes the article worthless to me and the page now has to be rewritten.

 

We're not talking about apples and oranges here. There aren't different copyright rules just because someone runs a small business or website versus a large corporation. I write for large and small businesses. It doesn't affect my rates, or what they're willing to pay. I just know how to market myself to them effectively. The size of the client has absolutely no bearing on copyright anyway. They still need to stipulate in a contract what rights they're buying if they expect the copyright.

An article on it's own doesn't have to bring in that much money. It's on the client to market the site effectively to get the viewers. What makes the article cost worth it to them is that when they buy high quality, reputable work, they build it up, giving readers a reason to come back and to trust them over smaller competing sites. If they do their job right in the marketing department and get those readers, getting them to come back is easier. They then make their money through independent advertising deals (and even small sites can make great ad deals if they know what they're doing).

The people who pay $5 / article are usually in one of two groups:

1. They don't care about building trust in their site, so a bunch of regurgitated Web research simply suits their needs for SEO purposes, or

2. They want to run a quality site with unique content, but they have no idea how to market and monetize the content that they buy well enough to justify paying more. It's not the article's "fault" if a webmaster can't get visitors to the site. Using their inability to monetize it is imo no different than going to a car dealership and saying "I'm only going to pay you 1/10 of the price of this car, b/c I'm not going to drive it often, and won't get the full benefit of it." Not going to cut it with serious writers, but new writers or those who simply can't market themselves well to better clients might let them get away with an arguement like that. The articles are there to be an attraction to get them to stay, come back, and to give people something of quality to link to.

If you want unique articles that will never be sold again you either have to pay enough to buy out all of a writer's interest in their work, or you need to find a writer that's new or naive enough to just hand it all over.

Large or small is definitely not the deciding factor in who pays well (plenty of large corporations pay peanuts); it's in who actually runs / wants to run an authority site on their subject, and is willing to pay for industry experts to come in to write their pieces (not the kinds of clients who pay "generic" writers that will research and write on any subject under the sun).

If a writer is exclusively marketing themselves to webmasters, they very likely don't expect to get paid terribly much, often because they don't know how to. So they're willing to work for less. Many also don't even understand that they can license their work in more than one medium, and don't want to put in the effort to find additional buyers anyway. So if they want to sign over all of their rights for $5, that's up to them.... but you still need to get it in writing in some way if you don't want them to change their mind someday and resell the piece once they realize they're permitted to do that.

 

The law is the law regardless of monetary or consideration amounts.

Unless you at least talk about it with the other party BEFOREHAND (spelling out the details), your expectations of the other party's actions in the deal (like not reselling/reusing) are of no significance.

 

I do not know about other writers here or elsewhere. I know that I have built my business by being honest with my clients. I do not charge high prices. I may only receive $5 for some articles, however, this does not mean that I will resell their article over and over again. I treat each client the same and keep their names in confidence and they have all the rights to each and every article that I provide for them.

I provide quality content at affordable prices. Not everyone starting out can afford high prices and I believe they should be able to find a content writer that will work with them on an individual basis.

I do not feel that since I do not charge as much as some, that my quality or reputation should be in question.

 

I'm not sure what being honest and providing "quality" writing has to do with anything. We're talking about the law.

At least, I thought we was about the law and not what people charge for services.

Sure, you're giving your clients the right to do what they want (I'm assuming), but LEGALLY you still own the copyright if there wasn't and explicit conversation and/or contract about who owns what and to what degree.