My senior year of high school, I won this writing contest (Scholastic, if it helps with my question). After I won, they went me a thing that said they own every submission I sent them, whether it won anything or not, and only they retained the rights to publish it wherever. (they also pulled a whole bunch of other political bullshit on me, but that’s neither here nor there). If you don’t know about Scholastic, they are total Nazis about this kind of stuff, and they have people who just read literary magazines and see if anything has been submitted twice. Anyway, one of the short stories I sent in (a winning piece that has not been published by them yet) I want to enter in a much bigger contest. It’s not the exact same story–I took away a character, totally changed the last couple of lines, added about a page, and so on. However, the two pieces are clearly the same; they have the same plot, same characters (except for that one, obviously), same conflict, and same title. Can I still get away with trying to publish it elsewhere?
Send it to the copyright office. If they reject it, then the answer is probably no. If not, then go and send it in. Just to be safe, I’d change around all the character’s names. So, goodluck on that part and on the contest.
Scholasticis going to want first rights on your winning story. Did they ever send you a contract? Did you sign it or otherwise agree to their terms (cashing their check could do this)? If so, you’re stuck. You may be able to get the non-winning stories released if you hire a lawyer and if you won the contest as a minor, and thus the contract may not be able to be enforced.
There are also problems with the second contest. They’re probably going to insist that the story is unpublished, and would be very upset to discover it had won another contest previously. From your description, it’s not likely they’d consider it a different story.
The best answer to this dilemma is to write a completely different story.
BTW, writing contests often say all entries become the property of the people running the contest, but that’s primarily because they don’t want to return the entries. The entry becomes their property (i.e., the pieces of paper you send them, but not the story itself. (And I’d be surprised if they bothered to check out every single story they’ve been sent – there are probably thousands of them and entries, most of which are recycled once the contest is over.)
The story was never published in anything. In fact, even the title of the winning story was never published anywhere.
But I guess my point is, it’s not the same story, really. I would say my more recent revision is 20-25% different than the original. Is that different enough for it to be something completely different?
They notified you about copyright after you submitted something to them (not to mention winning - congrats!)? It would seem to me that notification like that would only stand if it came up front before you submitted your entry.
Was there nothing on the entry form about this? Did you submit directly to them or through a teacher? If through a teacher, would they have more information that would indicate possible prior knowledge about copyright?
As an aside, I don’t know what Scholastics is (can it be considered a literary forum), but with science rags, it is heavily frowned on to publish the same work in more than one journal. Perhaps the same applies to the literary world.
This isn’t really an issue of copyright; it’s an issue of the contract between you and Scholastic (which, Brachyrhynchos, is a publisher and distributor of books aimed at students).
Exactly what rights did Scholastic claim? Did you ever do anything that they could construe as agreeing to their terms (such as cashing a check, if the contract stipulations are on the back of the check)? Were you a minor at the time?
What are the rules for the contest you plan to enter? Is a story that won another contest forbidden?
As whether the story is “different enough,” there’s no easy answer or good rule of thumb.
When I entered the contest through a teacher (this was a year and a half ago; I don’t really remember all the details), the instructions said not to enter anything that has already won a contest or that has been previously submitted to Scholastic. After I won, they sent me the other stipulations of winning.
Also, I want to use other works I entered that didn’t win. If they see a winning work published somewhere else, they can take the money I won away from me, but what if the piece didn’t win?
I doubt that the Copyright Office examines anything sent in to see if somebody else holds a copyright on the same work. The Copyright Office doesn’t keep copies of the works sent in for registration. Those get shipped off to the Library of Congress and LC then usually throws about half of those in the trash. (The Library of Congress is the world’s biggest library, but it’s not America’s dumping ground for bad literature and other types of art.)
You should register your copyright and then if publication issues come up where there is a dispute, the courts will sort it all out.
How old were you when you submitted the story? If you were under the legal age of consent in your state, the contract is unenforceable, and the bastards haven’t got a leg to stand on.
The big question, as i see it, is if the two stories are “different”. The contract end of the dispute is valid, but only if you have money to spend on the lawers. If you don’t have that kind of disposable income, try to deside if the stories are the same or different. I was taught that there is no rule of thum (the fictitious “eight notes” in musical copyrights for instance). If the two stories ever went to court, a group of people would have to deside, but only based on thier own oppinion. How different are the stories’ plots and resolutions? Could one be changed to become a sepparate story involving some of the same characters? The only other thought i had was weather or not you read the rules before entering the first story. If you didn’t because they sent the full set of rules to you after you won the contest, you might have a case.