todd_cannon
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Wyoming
I work for a newspaper as a graphic designer. On my own time and with my own equipment I wrote a series of columns that the newspaper published. I was not compensated for these columns. Now the newspaper claims the own them. Is that correct? I never signed anything.
I wrote a column that was published in the newspaper I work for in June 2010 while the editor was out of town. The column was run with her permission. Later, she suggested I do more of them, because if I had columns from three consecutive months, they could be submitted to the Wyoming Press Association yearly competition.
Since then, I have written one column per month. As nothing else was ever discussed, I assumed that all I had given them were first publication rights, and I retained the copyright.
I talked to the editor about it today, because there's talk of putting all past newspapers online, and I figured that this was more than first publication rights. That's when she told me the newspaper owns them. I said that I never would have given them to them if I had known they would own them totally.
She said I could be compensated now for all the previous columns, at $20 each. I said I'd rather have the ownership instead of compensation; she said she discuss it with the publisher.
I'm just curious how valid her claim of ownership may be.
I work for a newspaper as a graphic designer. On my own time and with my own equipment I wrote a series of columns that the newspaper published. I was not compensated for these columns. Now the newspaper claims the own them. Is that correct? I never signed anything.
I wrote a column that was published in the newspaper I work for in June 2010 while the editor was out of town. The column was run with her permission. Later, she suggested I do more of them, because if I had columns from three consecutive months, they could be submitted to the Wyoming Press Association yearly competition.
Since then, I have written one column per month. As nothing else was ever discussed, I assumed that all I had given them were first publication rights, and I retained the copyright.
I talked to the editor about it today, because there's talk of putting all past newspapers online, and I figured that this was more than first publication rights. That's when she told me the newspaper owns them. I said that I never would have given them to them if I had known they would own them totally.
She said I could be compensated now for all the previous columns, at $20 each. I said I'd rather have the ownership instead of compensation; she said she discuss it with the publisher.
I'm just curious how valid her claim of ownership may be.