Copyright and Rita Skeeter

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 83257

--- Caipora wrote:
>
> Based on my limited RL experience - only once 
> has anything I've written been printed in a 
> vehicle with a circulation over a million - 
> when you write you sell the copyright. Then 
> they do with it what they will. I've seen 
> things of mine on the Internet, presumably 
> with permission of they copyright owner, who 
> didn't ask my approval. 
>
> [snip discussion re: work for hire]
>
> The Skeeter/Lovegood/Prophet arrangement seems 
> perfectly normal. 

This is getting a bit off-topic, but the typical
arrangement for publication in a periodical --
at least by a correspondent such as Rita -- is
a license for publication in that particular 
issue, not a sale of the copyright or a work-
for-hire relationship.  (Indeed, since Rita is 
not an employee of the Quibbler, she can't make 
a work for hire in the sense that term has 
historically been used in RW copyright law; 
it would be different if she were a staff 
writer.)

As a result, Sue (post #83035) is correct in
suggesting that the Quibbler would not (again
applying RW custom and legal principles) have 
the right to relicense for publication in a 
different periodical.  There have even been 
disputes in the US, recently, as to whether a 
journal can republish its print issue in an 
online format without obtaining an additional
license from the article authors.

Caipora, your experience may be different if 
you made a work for hire or sold your entire 
copyright.  Or, alternatively, maybe you should 
be asking your licensee for compensation for 
those Internet pieces.... :)

-- Matt