I had a theory piece of mine published several years ago in a journal that specified the following–
I have received in inquiry from editors putting together an academic textbook (sociological reader in my topic area). They would like to include my article.
[pause]
whoo-hoo!!!
[/pause]
Disclaimer: the original journal and its publishing company have NOT said anything along the lines of “Hell, no, you can’t publish your article again”. I haven’t asked them yet, and have no reason to anticipate that they’ll say anything other than “sure, and congratulations”. So this is just an informal inquiry, an opinion-seeking post, albeit one aimed at those who have reason to believe they know the answer more likely than not.
Insofar as I, personally, am not the editor of the new compendium, and am also not the author of the textbook altogether, do you read the copyright phrase to be saying that I do not have the intrinsic in-writing built-in permission to tell the textbook editors “Sure, by all means include my article”? And that, therefore, the publishing company of the original journal must give their OK?
I am not an expert in copyright laws, but IMHO, for what it’s worth, is that you can always have your work published in as often as you like in as many publications as you like. You always have the right to reuse your own materials.
It says that “authors are requested” to assign copyright. But did you actually assign the copyright to them? Was there a contract? If not, I don’t see how they can claim copyright (if the wording was “authors are required,” it’d be a different case and you’d be SOL – the wording seems to say that you don’t have the permission to republish in a book edited by someone else).
Absent any document officially assigning the rights to the publisher, or a policy that grabs the rights automatically, you own the copyright. But by “requesting” that you assign copyright, the publishers are obviously trying to make sure that they are the one being paid for the reprint.
It boils down to how much the original publisher wants to push it. I suppose the best thing would be to ask them for permission, but they may use their “copyright” to get the payment themselves instead of it going to you. Things could get ugly if they want to push it.
I don’t seem to have a copy of any “contract”, but for the sake of discussion let’s assume I did indeed “assign” the rights as the paragraph described. It was quite a while back, and although I did minor battle with them regarding article content (wording, etc), I probably would’ve signed away anything short of my left testicle and soul to get into print.
What would prevent me, Stephen “King” Bricker, from writing and selling my book to one publishing house, and then publishing it myself, undercutting my erstwhile benefactors?
The law would, that’s what.
You may sell the rights to your own work, and thereafter have no right to publish it.