I figured: If your articles usually sell for $200, and you won't give up the copyright for less than four figures ($1000), 1000/200 = 5 (I think. My math degree was in theory, not arithmetic.) I'll be checking out your posts.
Probably this is the best way! I like your honesty. Basically most of the buyers are ignorant about copyright laws. Ethically if client contact a writer, he/she virtually provide writer a concept. The writer works on concept and use his/her creativity to convert the same. This means the original concept belongs to client and that's his/her own intellectual property. Why we mess around with client about charging additional money for full rights?
It's not about honesty; it's about legality, and protecting your rights as a writer. Just because clients want everything under the sun for next to nothing doesn't mean they should get it. And writers aren't always "subcontractors;" they're often just contractors, meaning everything is detailed between them and the end client, with no middleman. If the clients are choosing to purchase writing, it's their responsibility to not be ignorant about things like copyright law. There's also nothing "ethically" involved with concepts. Unless it's a flat out work for hire where the exact piece is detailed, that rarely applies. Many times writers are just given general niches, and their concepts are entirely their own in that process. And you have to remember "ideas" are not intellectual property in a legal sense. It's not about messing around with clients; it's about earning a solid living at a craft that a lot of people take for granted. A lawyer doesn't charge scraps. Neither does a marketing consultant. Neither will the vast majority of freelancers offering a specialty service, and writers don't have to be an exception to the rule.
I just didn't word it well. Ideas can't be "copyrighted" or even trademarked, or really protected at all in the sense of writing, which is what we're talking about here. They have to be in a tangible form, and not an idea itself. They were talking about the concept of an article in particular, which is something you can't protect. You can write on a topic, and everyone and their brother has equal rights to write on that same topic or concept, as long as they're not stealing the article.
Ah. You said Intellectual Property, which is more than copyright/tm. If you could keep someone else from writing about a topic, that would make for some interesting newspapers.