TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:RE: small invoices, big egos From:Bryan Zako <bryan -dot- zako -at- interfacing -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 22 Jan 2003 17:46:23 -0500
The idea of retaining copyright until final payment is a good one.
In a journalism course (way back) that dealt with tort law, we had one
session dealing with copyright law. Bear in mind this was in a Canadian
university and not in a university in the Land Of Litigation.
To keep it simple, whoever creates the intellectual property automatically
retains copyright of it. There is no need to "formally" copyright the
material as the law protects the author at the moment of creation. EXCEPT
when that work is paid for by a third party (employer). So if you work for
someone who pays you, that payment is for the services you provided in
creating the material, and so the copyright changes to the employer at the
moment of payment.
If you are a contractor, the copyright changes at the moment of final
payment. I am changing things slightly because the topic dealt more with the
submission of freelance articles but the idea remains the same; you are
doing something that remains yours until someone pays you otherwise to own
it.
To show how deeply this goes (and to provide the example the lawyer gave
us): say you are a (bored/creatively minded) tech writer, who finds they
have an enormous amount of time at work to pursue your true career path of
Best Selling Author. You pen your novel at work, it goes best seller and you
move to Martinique. Well, you almost move to Martinique because (drum roll
please) as an employee, working during business hours to create your
bestseller, your employer OWNS the thing.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A new book on Single Sourcing has been released by William Andrew
Publishing: _Single Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation_
is now available at: http://www.williamandrew.com/titles/1491.html.
Help Authoring Seminar 2003, coming soon to a city near you! Attend this
educational and affordable one-day seminar covering existing and emerging
trends in Help authoring technology. See http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l2.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
