How "Work For Hire" Laws Protect You When You Hire a Ghostwriter
Some people are interested in jumping on the article marketing bandwagon but lack either the time or writing skills to write their own articles.
No problem, hire a ghostwriter.
A ghostwriter can write articles for you that you can then in turn publish under your won byline and get inbound links pointing back to your website.
But can the ghostwriter then turn around and sell the same article to another client?Or can the ghostwriter republish the same material in his or her own name? The answer is no.
United States copyright laws automatically give all rights to written materials to the writer, unless it falls under the category of "work for hire.
"Work for hire means that the writer was contracted to write the work by an employer or a client.
This is different from when the writer sells certain rights to a magazine or newsletter.
In that case, only the rights have been sold, but the writer retains all other rights to his or her creative product.
Work for hire laws actually set up a win-win situation for both the people who hire ghostwriters and the ghostwriters themselves.
When the work is paid for, the client now owns all rights to the material.
The writer has sold it all.
The client can now put his or her byline on the article, can now republish the article in any place he or she chooses, and can receive all the revenue and other benefits derived from the writing.
But the ghostwriter also has some protections under work for hire laws.
The writer keeps all copyrights until the work has been paid for.
This means that if the ghostwriter is only paid 50% of the agreed upon fee up front, and the client decides not to pay the balance after seeing the work, the client cannot then submit the articles to article submission sites, cannot put his or her bylines on the material, cannot claim it as his or her own and cannot use it in any way.
Writers who have not been paid for their work can notify article submission sites that their unpaid-for-articles are being plagiarized when they see that non paying clients has posted their articles.
They can also notify the clients' web hosting service that plagiarized material is appearing on that site.
The clients too can play the same game when they have paid agreed upon fees in full and then see that writers are reusing the same material in their own names.
Work for hire laws literally protect both parties from fraud, plagiarism and misuse of intellectual property.
COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown
No problem, hire a ghostwriter.
A ghostwriter can write articles for you that you can then in turn publish under your won byline and get inbound links pointing back to your website.
But can the ghostwriter then turn around and sell the same article to another client?Or can the ghostwriter republish the same material in his or her own name? The answer is no.
United States copyright laws automatically give all rights to written materials to the writer, unless it falls under the category of "work for hire.
"Work for hire means that the writer was contracted to write the work by an employer or a client.
This is different from when the writer sells certain rights to a magazine or newsletter.
In that case, only the rights have been sold, but the writer retains all other rights to his or her creative product.
Work for hire laws actually set up a win-win situation for both the people who hire ghostwriters and the ghostwriters themselves.
When the work is paid for, the client now owns all rights to the material.
The writer has sold it all.
The client can now put his or her byline on the article, can now republish the article in any place he or she chooses, and can receive all the revenue and other benefits derived from the writing.
But the ghostwriter also has some protections under work for hire laws.
The writer keeps all copyrights until the work has been paid for.
This means that if the ghostwriter is only paid 50% of the agreed upon fee up front, and the client decides not to pay the balance after seeing the work, the client cannot then submit the articles to article submission sites, cannot put his or her bylines on the material, cannot claim it as his or her own and cannot use it in any way.
Writers who have not been paid for their work can notify article submission sites that their unpaid-for-articles are being plagiarized when they see that non paying clients has posted their articles.
They can also notify the clients' web hosting service that plagiarized material is appearing on that site.
The clients too can play the same game when they have paid agreed upon fees in full and then see that writers are reusing the same material in their own names.
Work for hire laws literally protect both parties from fraud, plagiarism and misuse of intellectual property.
COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown
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