What do “first serial rights,” “all rights,” “one-time rights,” “electronic rights” and “work for hire” mean and why should I care?
When you sell your work to a publication, you are not selling the manuscript itself but the right to publish it — and then the question arises, the right to publish it how many times and under what circumstances? The fairest deal in most situations for writer and publication is “first serial rights,” which means that the magazine buys the right to publish the piece first in any periodical anywhere. This is often modified by a geographical adjective, such as “First North American serial rights,” or by a linguistic descriptor, such as “First English-language serial rights.” Once the magazine to whom you have sold first serial rights publishes the piece, you own it completely again. You can sell the exact same piece to another magazine, which would then be buying “second serial rights” or “reprint rights.” “All rights” is usually a bad deal for writers. It means you sell the magazine the right to publish the article as many times as they like, to resell or to license the rights to a movi
Related Questions
- The agreement says the work is a "work for hire" but the work that is not listed in the tools categories for "works for hire"; what does this mean?
- What do "first serial rights," "all rights," "one-time rights," "electronic rights" and "work for hire" mean and why should I care?
- What does "First Serial Rights" mean?
