How Publishing in Contests Affects Your Rights
By Rusty LaGrange, High Desert Branch
A High Desert Branch member asked their newsletter editor, Rusty LaGrange, to clarify what contests mean by “cannot be previously published.” This response appeared in the June 2018 edition of The Inkslinger. Rusty urges us to remind readers that she is not trained in the legal aspects of copyright, and that any questions of a legal nature should go directly to a copyright lawyer. This said, if you’re thinking about entering a writing completion, you’ll want to pay atention to the comments below.
Q: I want to enter a Writer’s Digest contest and one of the rules is that our entry must not have been published. Are they talking about professional publication or are those works published in our newsletter exempt?
A: Some folks believe that if you are printed anywhere, you are published. I don’t agree with that. If you are printed in a church newsletter to a limited congregation of 200 members – that to me is a closed publication. The Inkslinger is a closed, members-only publication, although you can read it on the chapter’s website. The odds of thousands of readers finding that poem is crazy. I would go ahead and submit as never-been published. I base my stance on the digital magazine broadcast to thousands of subscribers in a public/commercial distribution. We aren’t one of those – plain and simple.
Q: What is a one-time publication right?
A: One-time rights mean they will print it once if you win in their mail /hard copy publication that you have entered. However, since Writer’s Digest is so big and in digital format, your poem or story will be showing wherever their products are open to the public. They will not pay you for every instance that it may show up, and it will be archived with their files in all sorts of formats… Alas, if you want to compete, you sign the agreement. The item is still yours but it could show up elsewhere without your subsequent consent. The digital world has changed the rules to printing but not to copyrighting. Once it’s printed, it’s copyrighted. Period. Yet that doesn’t mean that some unscrupulous person couldn’t copy and paste it as their own.
Q: I don’t understand this paragraph in the application form. (Are they saying that my stories do not belong to me anymore?):
I hereby grant the Sponsoring Organization one-time publication rights to the winning entries, to be published in a Writer’s Digest publication, which may be promoted, distributed, and sold. Writer’s Digest also has the nonexclusive right to reproduce, display, promote, and distribute winning entries in digital form, including but not limited to the Sponsoring Organization’s websites, databases, or as part of downloadable digital products associated with Writer’s Digest competitions. The Sponsoring Organization warrants that it shall include in all uses of the Work an attribution, in house style, based upon the contributor information provided.
A: No, you will keep your ownership of your entries in this contest. Consider the statewide distribution of our CWC Bulletin with nearly 2000 membership/readers. THAT I would consider a publication because it’s much larger and the potential of many readers is higher. Distribution goes to members, as well as other readers who can share it online, send it, and view it on the website. It also includes paid advertisements that would entice author’s services beyond the state’s borders.
Good luck with the contest.
Based on an exchange between
Rusty LaGrange and Karen Ohta