When hiring freelance writer for my online magazine

1. If you don't have a standard contract to offer your freelance writers, STOP. DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER. You'll need something in writing to protect you and anybody who writes for you if the need ever arises. DO NOT ASSUME ANYTHING. This contract will need to spell out who owns what, how much you're paying, and the length of the terms of the contract.

2. If you're going to give your writers links to the information, you might as well be writing the articles yourself. Give them the assignment and let them do the research on their own.

1. By default, copyright stays with the writer. You do need a contract spelling out clear expectations.

2. No, I don't think the pay rate would be different. You can provide the starting point, especially if you have a particular angle in mind. Writing an article is much more work than just finding a bit of relevant information. IME, pay rate has more to do with the length of the article and sometimes how "involved" a piece is.

ketanco said:

for #1, can you show or refer me to a sample contract? also would emails be sufficient confirmation? for instance if the writer agrees to me in an email that the copyright stays with me, would it be enough, as it is in writing?
for #2, all i need is interesting news on my subject area, which is robotics and hi tech stuff. so i look around and see interesting news and give those links to the writer. by saying give him the assignment what do you mean? do i just say "find an interesting piece of news and write about it"... that will always be the same assignment then... or for example i tell him to make a news about something by researching things and talking to people calling them etc..?

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Somebody else might have a decent example for a contract; freelance writing isn't my area but I know enough about it and other similar agreements to where I'm comfortable saying "get a contract". An email trail might work in court, if necessary, but those are easier to forge than a signed contract and might not be admissible.

As far as assigning your writers, you pretty much just say something like "can you give me an article on X subject, about 5000 words?" If you make it too broad and ask for "something interesting", you run the risk of getting something not on topic.

In theory e-mails are written agreement which could stand up in law as being the same as a contract BUT it is by no means a safe route to go down as there is a massive risk of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and so on... it is far better to have a clear contract written out and signed by both parties to show that you both know what you are agreeing to.

It is not necessarily needed to have a lawyer involved in writing this contract (though one can help with what is legal and what is not and how to word certain elements of it) and I don't think they need to be witnessed like some forms of contract do but an actual signature on an actual piece of paper on which is listed all the terms that have been agreed to means that any contestation does not have to involve months of trawling through an e-mail trail (some of which may have been deleted) trying to find the one where they agreed to X but not to Y and them potentially claiming that this was not what they actually agreed to and so on. Under the law if it is written down and there is indication of agreement to those terms then chances are a judge will side with you... however, establishing this after the fact is usually going to be expensive in lawyer time whereas showing a judge an official contract that both have undeniably signed basically makes it far simpler.

You need to outline things like what the writer is expected to do for you (write an article) by which deadline, how much you will pay them, what rights are acquired and so on.

Now, copyright stays with the author automatically (and most will not be happy with a contract which took that away from them). What you as a publisher are actually usually buying is what is called 'first rights' which is the right to be the first publisher of that piece of work. This means that once they sign, they cannot finish the piece and send it to another publisher before you get your chance to publish it. First rights can also be regional - so you can buy only North American rights or only European. You also need to establish how long you keep the rights for (and this is problematic in modern days with ebooks being permanently 'in print').

I am sure someone can send you a link to a good contract...

You should look at exclusive rights for one year instead of first rights. There are plenty of sites where writers write under those conditions all the time. Or you could have them agree that it is a work made for hire and then it is your article as if you wrote it.

IF you only go with first rights, then you end up with the Google issue if for some reason the article gets plastered all over the place. And if you're doing SEO, then you definitely don't want search engines to water down your results because of other re-prints out there.

Also you should have the right to reject the article/cancel the contract if your articles doesn't pass an automated plagerism search. (This becomes more important because there are attorneys now who troll newspapers and periodicals for contracts to enforce their copyright. I read an article where some little old cat lady blogger was sued by a newspaper (via one of these attorneys) for thousands of dollars because she'd clipped an article from their paper about some cat. --think of it as the next-gen ambulance chasers-- I think she settled for several hundred dollars because that was cheaper than getting an attorney and defending herself in court. That seems to be the MO of these attorneys, scare the bjeezus out of an individual and 'settle' for $600-$1000 because it's cheaper than going to court. Then they split the settlement with the contracting newspaper.)

ETA: I guess they're called copyright trolls. Here's a Wired article about the guy who started it: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/

And here is the cat bloggers case in front of a not-to-happy judge: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/aug/26/judge-questions-righthaven-over-r-j-copyright-suit/

ETA Again: So, I went looking to see where that company is today. Apparently they've imploded and the (attorney) CEO is making an utter fool of himself in the courts. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...-name-lawyer-who-it-still-owes-money-to.shtml

First rights mean you have the right to publish it first and, if you word the contract right, can also cover exclusive for a period. In these cases the author keeps the copyright and, once the exclusive period is up, has the right to publish the article again somewhere else. However, the importance of first rights is that once something has been published it loses its 'novel nature' and so there are fewer people willing to publish it again. Therefore, first rights are often worth more to the writer and the publisher.

And yes, I think it is common in non fiction magazine articles to do 'work for hire' which means, under the contract as written generally for that sort of work, the publisher buys the article in its entirity including the copyright... in some cases, this even means that the writer does not get credit for it (this is often the case in many SEO jobs - the article is published either anonymously or under the name of a company).

Now, for the former you are more likely in a situation where the writer sends you articles to your submission e-mail on topics they think are interesting to your readers and you decide if you want to buy them or not and offer a standard contract.

The latter is more what you describe where you are not soliciting general subs but are instead asking for skilled writers to do articles on things you tell them to write (and might give resources etc, though decent writers should not need this - just a title and a vague brief will do and some may feel offended that you don't consider them capable of doing thier own research). In that case, because they do not come up with the original idea, they don't have as much right to the copyright than if they came up with everything themselves and usually most will not care about the copyright being sold to you as part of the contract.