Former employer selling stories they got for free

[canucklehead]

Looking for thoughts on this:

My former employer, who laid me and others off two years ago, is now attempting to sell for $50 each pieces I wrote last winter (post-layoff) for a university that employed me to write stories for their athletic department and conference.
The newspaper did not pay me or the university for the stories. I was paid by the university, who was thrilled to get in the paper since they were ignored for years.
I've asked the newspaper to stop but haven't received a response yet.
I did not sign a freelance agreement with the newspaper and did not know they were going to try and make money from the stories.

 

[Ace]

Looking for thoughts on this:

My former employer, who laid me and others off two years ago, is now attempting to sell for $50 each pieces I wrote last winter (post-layoff) for a university that employed me to write stories for their athletic department and conference.
The newspaper did not pay me or the university for the stories. I was paid by the university, who was thrilled to get in the paper since they were ignored for years.
I've asked the newspaper to stop but haven't received a response yet.
I did not sign a freelance agreement with the newspaper and did not know they were going to try and make money from the stories.

Were you employed by them or a freelancer?

If you were employed, I would suspect they can do whatever they want with your stories.

If you were a freelancer and you didn't sign an agreement, you may have a case, but if you were a freelancer, the paper couldn't lay you off.

 

[Cigar56]

Sounds complicated. There isn't much you can do here except ask them to stop, which you already have. The next step would be a phone call, and then a letter from an attorney.

You can find an attorney licensed in your state on Elance who will write a simple cease-and-desist letter and that shouldn't cost you much.

However, there isn't enough money here for you to actually sue, and there appears to be a gray area on who actually owns the content you wrote.

One more idea: Since the newspaper has identified a market for selling these stories, why don't you do the same?

 

[Cigar56]

Also, as Ace notes, all bets are probably off if you were an employee of the paper when you wrote the articles.

Good luck.

 

[boundforboston]

Canucklehead wasn't an employee of the newspaper (he/she had already been laid off when writing these stories). I'm guessing Canucklehead's work was taken by the newspaper because it was a press release of sorts from the university. My guess is that he/she doesn't have rights over the work because the university gives that stuff away for newspapers to run.

 

[da man]

Our Canadian friend will have to clarify, but it sounds like he was working for the university, probably as a freelancer but perhaps full-time, when he wrote the stories. If so, it's pretty likely the university owns the rights to the stories (though he might want to check his agreement with the university, such as a freelance contract, to be sure), in which case the school can do whatever it wants with them. If that is the case, if this sale arrangement is OK with the university as rights holder, you're out of luck.

If you own the rights, or if the university owns the rights and has not signed off on the newspaper's sales deal, that's a whole different issue.

 

[KJIM]

The stories belong to the university, which paid you for them.

Do they have an issue with the situation? It's their call.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

I have to ask ...

What stories written last winter would a newspaper find a buyer for in May? This is not to question the original poster's writing ability, but it's the norm for stories to be considered outdated six hours after publication. Were these stories ever on the university's website? Could I find them for free? If so, who is going to pay for them?

If they were never posted online, I'm guessing the potential selling point is they were evergreen features or enterprise pieces, but it would be interesting to know more, if possible. It just seems a little optimistic on the paper's part to expect to be able to sell stories published last winter.

 

[da man]

I have to ask ...

What stories written last winter would a newspaper find a buyer for in May? This is not to question the original poster's writing ability, but it's the norm for stories to be considered outdated six hours after publication. Were these stories ever on the university's website? Could I find them for free? If so, who is going to pay for them?

If they were never posted online, I'm guessing the potential selling point is they were evergreen features or enterprise pieces, but it would be interesting to know more, if possible. It just seems a little optimistic on the paper's part to expect to be able to sell stories published last winter.

And for 50 bucks! Must be damn good work.

 

[toledojoe]

BoundforBoston has this right. This is a "work-for-hire" situation in which the university would be the owner of the article/articles. Your beef would be with the university. If the university gave it to the newspaper to do what it wants with it, it's a waste of time chirping to the newspaper. If the university is unhappy about it, then it's the university's call.

 

[Mark2010]

The stories belong to the university, which paid you for them.

Do they have an issue with the situation? It's their call.

Yeah, true. University SID offices often allow papers to publish their stuff for free. Now, whether the paper has the right to turn around and sell it --- to WHO? --- is a separate matter.

I've always taken the approach that when I contract to write something, once the person hiring me has paid they have all-inclusive rights. Hey, I did my work and got my money, I don't care if the story ran one time or 100 times.

 

[Captain Obvious]

The stories belong to the university, which paid you for them.

Do they have an issue with the situation? It's their call.

Yeah, true. University SID offices often allow papers to publish their stuff for free. Now, whether the paper has the right to turn around and sell it --- to WHO? --- is a separate matter.

I've always taken the approach that when I contract to write something, once the person hiring me has paid they have all-inclusive rights. Hey, I did my work and got my money, I don't care if the story ran one time or 100 times.

I've only signed contracts that assigned non-exclusive, non-transferable rights to the paper.

 

[da man]

The stories belong to the university, which paid you for them.

Do they have an issue with the situation? It's their call.

Yeah, true. University SID offices often allow papers to publish their stuff for free. Now, whether the paper has the right to turn around and sell it --- to WHO? --- is a separate matter.

I've always taken the approach that when I contract to write something, once the person hiring me has paid they have all-inclusive rights. Hey, I did my work and got my money, I don't care if the story ran one time or 100 times.

I've only signed contracts that assigned non-exclusive, non-transferable rights to the paper.

Many of the freelance contracts I've signed grant exclusive rights to the paper for only a limited amount of time -- typically one, two or three days. -- and/or within its circulation area. After that period or outside the geographical area, the work can be published again. But that doesn't take away the paper's right to do whatever it wants with the work (that right is usually granted "in perpetuity").

 

[canucklehead]

I was indeed working part-time for the university and agree that the material belongs to them to do as they wish.
My problem is that my greedy former employer is attempting to make money off something they didn't pay for. Middle management getting bonuses while laying off workers (The typical scenario).
I agree that the stories have little worth to anyone and in fact I have them on my website for anyone who wants them for free.
Have already heard back from former co-worker at the newspaper who says he will take them off the list of available content.
Of note, he says no one has purchased the stories in the time they have been available, as I suspected.

 

[Mark2010]

You bring up a good point. I guess these sort of things should be negotiated and agreed to in advance.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Can the articles be realistically sold?

 

[KJIM]

It sounds like your beef is out of spite, not legality.

The university bought them and you OK'd it for them to do as they wished.

They wished to make it available to your former employer. What your former employer does with them is the university's business, not yours.

If the university wishes to pursue it, it's theirs to pursue.

You sold your dog in the fight. It's really none of your business anymore. Asking your former co-worker to remove the stories from the newspaper's website was out of line. The material is not your property. If the university objects, their legal representatives should be the ones to act.

In addition, if the university bought the rights to your stories, you might be in error in making them available for free on your own website.

 

[Starman]

Looking for thoughts on this:

My former employer, who laid me and others off two years ago, is now attempting to sell for $50 each pieces I wrote last winter (post-layoff) for a university that employed me to write stories for their athletic department and conference.
The newspaper did not pay me or the university for the stories. I was paid by the university, who was thrilled to get in the paper since they were ignored for years.
I've asked the newspaper to stop but haven't received a response yet.
I did not sign a freelance agreement with the newspaper and did not know they were going to try and make money from the stories.

Well, first of all, talk to a lawyer.

However, be aware that if you make too much of a stink about it (this line may have already been crossed) the newspaper will quit running the stories.

As far as they are concerned they are getting content from the university for free. They don't care what it cost the university to obtain this content. If you make an issue out of demanding compensation, most likely they will say 'the hell with it' and stop.

I am pretty sure (under US law anyway) that any story you write at the direction of a purchaser (the university, 'the paper,' magazine, website, etc) is considered a Work Made For Hire and 'the paper' essentially assumes full ownership of it upon payment of your agreed fee. If they agree to pay you $50 for it, as long as they pay that $50 they can do whatever they want with it -- they can spike it, they can give it away for nothing, they can reprint it 100 times, they can sell it for 50 cents or they can sell it for $50,000.

Now if you come to them with a story you have generated on your own and propose to sell it to them, YOU can make demands regarding their resale rights. You can grant specifically limited resale rights, you can specify rights reverting to you at certain points, etc etc.

Obviously to make these demands you must have leverage: either you as an author/content producer needs to be marketable enough to make the demands, or the story you are selling needs to be unique and desirable to 'the paper.'

In this case, your purchaser is the university. They offered to pay you $50 per story and you agreed.

Unless both you and the subject matter are very marketable commodities, I would be pretty careful in making any demands for the paper (a third party in regard to you) to pay money. If they can get somebody else to generate the content for free, they are almost certainly going to go with them instead.

 

[Here me roar]

He doesn't need a lawyer. He should read his freelance contract with the university. It most certainly lays out that it owns the story. Even if the newspapers is selling it (sounds like they just put it out there, but no one is buying), it's not the freelancers property. Freelancers who do stories on assignment for an entity do not own those stories.

 

[Starman]

He doesn't need a lawyer. He should read his freelance contract with the university. It most certainly lays out that it owns the story. Even if the newspapers is selling it (sounds like they just put it out there, but no one is buying), it's not the freelancers property. Freelancers who do stories on assignment for an entity do not own those stories.

Only if they sign an agreement specifically assigning all rights to the purchaser.

I did not sign a freelance agreement with the newspaper

Again, unless the material is marketable to other potential buyers, it's probably a moot issue.

Legally, he does have additional rights, but as I noted in the post above, if he attempts to assert these rights, the newspaper is quite likely to quit using the material altogether.