Critiqued and Published in one step

[plnelson]

As a photographer I've long been aware that an image that appears on the web is regarded as "published" from a legal standpoint. Copyright law, appropriation of one's image, model-release law, etc all apply exactly the same way as if it were published in print.

Also, courts have been increasingly looking on blogs the same way, especially in regard to copyrighted text, First Amendment issues, and so on.

Many poetry publications will not consider submissions of already published work so I called three of them last year to ask if they regarded poems that had appeared in online critique forums as "published". One said definitely yes and they would not accept it if they knew. Another said no, they didn't care, and a third said they were thinking about it.

Before submitting work to be critiqued here in AW is this something we need to take into account?

[veinglory]

If you specify a members-only password protected forum from which it has now been deleted, that reduces the number who consider it to have taken first publishing rights.

[poetinahat]

Yep -- the password protection is intended to guard First Rights, but as you say, Peter, it's clearly publisher-dependent.

Several people delete their works from the Critique forum if they're going to submit them; I'm happy to assist with that any time.