Hi, new to this forum, so apologies if my question has already been answered previously.
As the former editor of a specialist magazine, I wrote articles on various subjects within its genre that were published in it. I left the title when it was subsequently sold on to another publisher, but ensured I took PDFs of some of the articles I had written prior to and published before the sale. My question is: Can I supply those PDFs to non-profit websites for them to post without falling foul of any copyright issues with the new publisher? I would not be looking for payment for these articles, I just want the information in them to be freely available.
Or would I have to gain permission from the new publisher to supply the PDFs to websites of my choice (crediting when and where the articles were published)?
Thanks in advance for any advice here.
Providing article PDFs
Re: Providing article PDFs
Hi Oldhack,
Because you were an employeee of the magazine's publishers, copyright in everything you wrote in the course of your job belongs to the publisher, unless there was any special provision to the contrary in your contract of employment (see section 11(2) of the the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. When the magazine was sold, the copyright will have pased to the new owner as part of the goodwill in the business.
Retaining copies of your work for your personal use is fine and would be covered by section 29 CDPA. And although section 29 does allow fair dealing in a copyright work including non-commercial publication, re-publishing the whole of an article would exceed the fair dealing provisions.
On that basis, you should seek permission from the new publishers. Under the circumstances, I can't imagine this will be a problem.
Because you were an employeee of the magazine's publishers, copyright in everything you wrote in the course of your job belongs to the publisher, unless there was any special provision to the contrary in your contract of employment (see section 11(2) of the the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. When the magazine was sold, the copyright will have pased to the new owner as part of the goodwill in the business.
Retaining copies of your work for your personal use is fine and would be covered by section 29 CDPA. And although section 29 does allow fair dealing in a copyright work including non-commercial publication, re-publishing the whole of an article would exceed the fair dealing provisions.
On that basis, you should seek permission from the new publishers. Under the circumstances, I can't imagine this will be a problem.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007