Changing the Boilerplate?

Posted in Local Editor Resources on December 5, 2002

Is it time to update your newsletter’s boilerplate? For many Mensa publications, some variation of the following has been standard: “Permission is granted to other Mensa publications to reprint material, provided that the material does not bear individual copyright, that credit is given to the author or artist and newsletter, and that a copy of the publication is sent to the editor.”


But recent discussion on the Editors’ e-mail list calls into question whether this standard text should be revisited. Click ‘Read More’ below for more details…

Because copyright laws say an individual’s work is automatically copyrighted at the time of creation— regardless of whether or not a copyright symbol is present — the author of any newsletter submission owns a copyright to that piece. The standard boilerplate above assumes that the writer has read the boilerplate and understands they need to place a copyright notice on their submission if they prefer it not be reprinted. Is this a valid assumption? Would a better solution be to specify that the owner of the piece must include a copyright notice if he prefers the item not to be reprinted? Or do we need to go a step further and require the author’s permission before any reprinting?


The main issue here is that we want to give all the appropriate consideration to the wonderful volunteers who submit items… but at the same time, we don’t want to make it prohibitively difficult for editors (also volunteers) to reprint items from other newsletters.


How do you think this should be handled? Feel free to post your ideas in the comments below…