[cc-community] Copyrights

Terry Hancock hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Sun May 4 18:38:51 EDT 2008


Bobbie wrote:
> Pardon me if thee has been answered in the pat; I'm relatively new here.
> Can one plagiarize one's self?

No. To "plagiarize" is to present someone else's work as if it were your
own. Obviously in this case, it IS your own, so there's no "plagiarism".

OTOH, there may be some other issues.

If you have already SOLD the rights to the work you previously
published, then you need to look carefully at what exactly you sold. If
you sold "all rights", then *they* own the work and you cannot copy it
without their permission unless your use falls under "fair use".

Which is one reason why you should NEVER EVER EVER sell "all rights" to
your work (unless of course, you are offered boatloads of cash).

Instead, you LICENSE any rights the publisher needs to make the deal.
That way, you continue to have the right to re-use your own work (Of
course, you have to honor any "exclusivity" arrangements you've included
in your license).

Finally, as a matter of professionalism, it may be desirable to
reference your own work, so as to give the reader access to the full
context of the original (there's also the economic point that you're
plugging your previous works ;-) ).

> Quoting text taken from one past published source and using it again in
> the same format?
> 
> And I would assume the print credit would still be listed as if it were
> someone else's input?

Yes, according to most stylesheets, you would simply list your work with
those of other authors (presumably the reader is smart enough to figure
out that you have the same name!)

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com



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