I wrote an article about health for a local newspaper in southern
California so that my company's name would be mentioned.  They didn't
pay me to print it, and I didn't pay them either.  Can I now take that
story and go to another paper to have it printed there too or does it
belong to the first newspaper?

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Clarification of Question by baruchhashem-ga on 24 Sep 2004 10:42 PDT

thanks for your comment-

Greetings Baruchhashem, 

If you did not sign an exclusive agreement, as if you simply submitted
the article and the paper printed it **and paid you no money**, then
you own the rights to the article.  However, please check any legal
announcements in the paper (they should be clearly stated somewhere in
each edition) to be certain there is nothing stated like "All
submissions become property of XX paper and may not be reprinted
without permission from XX paper" - something to that effect.

As a courtesy (if you do own the rights), you may want to consider
printing something like "Reprinted from XX newspaper" - that's up to
you.

I am not a lawyer, and this comment is not legal advice, but I am a
journalist who has had this situation arise before, and I proceeded to
reprint the articles when I discovered I had given away my copyright
to the material.

Best regards,
journalist-ga

CORRECTION Last Line from above:  "I had NOT given away my copyright" lol

Best regards,
journalist-ga