Mridu Khullar

I’m building a website and I’d like to publish my printed work as is on my website in the form of pdfs. Can I put them up without my editor’s permission?

Short answer: No. You can’t put them up without permission.

Long answer: While you own the copyright to the TEXT on that page, the published article consists of many other elements as well, including photography, design and art work. The magazine owns the copyright to the published piece in that form.

Look at it this way- if the photographer for the piece or the designer were to put it up on his or her website, you’d probably object, right? So would they if you put it up on yours. The best way to go about this is to contact the editor at the publication and ask specifically. I’ve done this a couple of times and they’re usually okay with it. I found it a hassle though, so I’ve just put up the text of my articles on mine without the design or accompanying photography.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 11:32 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.