Which Rights You Sell When You Write

©2005 by eibhlin morey macintosh

When you sell what you write, there are many different terms for the level of ownership you can offer to publishers. This is an informal guide. For more specific legal advice for writers, see the books featured at the bottom of this article.

"All rights" means that the publisher which buys your article has exclusive use of that article. You can't publish it somewhere else, and nobody else can either; only the customer can publish it, resell it, or do whatever he or she wants with it. You can write other articles on the same subject, but you can't copy the article or significant portions of it. (See Copying and Copyright Law for Writers for more information about this.)

"First rights" means that the customer will be the first person to publish the article. After it appears in print or online, you can publish the article yourself or resell the same article to others for reprints. Generally, there is an agreed-upon delay between when you sell the first rights and when you can resell or publish the same article. This is often 60 or 90 days, but make certain that this very clear when you sell the article the first time.

"One-time rights" indicates that the customer can publish your article once and that's all. Unless you're selling all rights, this is usually what the customer buys. However, make sure that this is clear at the time of the sale. Otherwise, your customer may publish the article many times if he or she owns several websites with similar themes.

The reverse is when a customer says that you can keep just one-time rights. In this case, the publisher may print the article repeatedly in a variety of places, and you agree to publish your own copy of the article at just one website.

"Reprint rights" means that the same (identical) article may have been published somewhere else, and you may--in the future--sell this same article to additional publishers. While reprint rights usually sell for about 1/3 to 1/10 of the price of a "first rights" sale, if you resell an article often enough, most of your income may come from reprints. This is why many writers won't sell all rights to a publisher unless the selling price is very good.