Please note that this post Freelance Writer; What are Your Rights? has been written by an outside source and I have been paid to publish it. I hope you find the information really useful. See Disclosure Policy.
As a freelance writer, your literally work is your worth. If you are looking for a job in a media house or even pitching to a certain company, your past work is what will speak for you. But what happens when all your past work is owned by someone else?
Most freelance writers ghostwrite for other sites for a fee. In most cases, the site you work for does not give you credit for your work. Instead, they elude that they wrote that article all by themselves. This is where the problem arises. Unless you have your own blog where you publish your original content, how do you show that you have amazing published work out there? Here are some of the rights every freelance writer should know.
1. Exclusive right
Exclusive right means that the client can only use your article in one form only. There have been cases where a writer comes up with great content and somebody else converts it into a multi-million movie or series. A mineral and royalty rights attorney can help you come up with such a contract giving the client exclusive rights to your work for a specific period after which you can then benefit even more from it. This is called licensing and it applies to other content as well not just articles. You can license a publisher to use your work for a specific time and then you are free to reuse it after that.
2. Moral rights
Every publisher has the moral right to credit you for your work unless specified otherwise. Unfortunately, many freelancer writers are desperate for work, so they just sign away their attribution right. Being credited for your work by using a byline is what will market you out there and give you credibility.
3. Non-exclusive rights
On rare occasions, you can have the right to sell your article to more than one publisher. Your work will be seen on multiple platforms as long as none of them ask for exclusive rights.
4. Usage right
When you sell your work to an entity, it’s important to know that it’s not the article you have sold but the right to use it. Ideally, the work still belongs to you and that is where most freelancers go wrong. When a publication buys an article, they usually get the first serial right to publish it. This may be the first North American Serial Rights or First English language serial right. Once they have gone live with the article, you can then sell it to another publisher as long as it’s not in the same category.
5. Understanding the contract
Contracts can be very intimidating for freelancers especially if they are full of jargon. However, the first step to understanding copyright law and your rights as a freelancer is to read them. You may need a lawyer to go through a big contract because some things are disguised in complicated phrases. If anything is infringing your rights as the original author of that work, you should decline it. Make sure you organize your work area, so you don’t lose the contract somewhere on your desk.
Work for hire is the most common way in which publishers violate the rights of a writer. Freelancers cannot qualify to do work for hire because they are not official employees of that company. Freelance writers should learn all about their rights to avoid being taken advantage of.
