Legalities

Free Tax Information for Freelance Writers

CCH specializes in tax and business law information and makes a point to make themselves available to journalists (including freelance writers and other flavors of professional writers) to help provide reliable tax information. They also publish a free guide to provide specialized tax help to journalists and photographers. More information on the guide is available [...]

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Support P&E

Preditors and Editors is a great site that keeps writers informed of people and groups that would love to take advantage of us. P&E is currently being sued for the organization’s good works and is in need of monetary support. Please donate to P&E’s legal fund: we can’t afford to lose them.

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SFWA’s Election: Non-members Actually Care

SFWA, for those of us who don’t rely on fiction to earn our bread, is Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, an organization for published genre authors. Some pretty big names are involved, from Ursula K. LeGuin to George R. R. Martin (big if you’re into sci fi and fantasy, anyhow). SFWA has an [...]

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Deduct Those Business Trips!

Most freelance writers work from home, but it’s still possible to put on some miles: conferences, interviews and generally trips to help us build our businesses. To an extent, the expenses we incur on those trips are deductible on our taxes, as long as we meet a few requirements: The trip must be primarily for [...]

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Take Action on Content Theft

The internet is great: you can publish all sorts of work and get paid for it almost immediately. But, unfortunately, it also makes it very easy for people to steal your work and repost it. It’s up to you to take action against this sort of content theft — even if you sold the piece [...]

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Add a legal dictionary to your reference books

Contractual jargon can be a pain in the butt, I admit. But a freelance writer could be facing new contracts on a very regular basis — too often to consult with an attorney about complex clauses. Short of taking classes on contract law, it can be hard to learn all the intricacies of the topic. [...]

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Work For Hire Clauses: Ownership of Related Items

This week, we’re focusing on ‘works for hire’ and the contracts that control them. During the process of completing a writing project, you may do extensive research, covering a number of topics related to your client’s business. You may have intentions of rewriting the same material down the road with a different slant. Double check [...]

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Work For Hire Clauses: Location

This week, we’re focusing on ‘works for hire’ and the contracts that control them. Location, location, location. We all know it’s important, but why should it matter when you’re signing a work for hire contract? These days, with so many freelancers working with clients all over the country (if not all over the world), it’s [...]

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Work For Hire Clauses: Proprietary Information

This week, we’re focusing on ‘works for hire’ and the contracts that control them. Depending on what sort of work for hire project you’re working on, your client may provide you with information to complete the project. This information may or may not be considered proprietary — information that they effectively own. In the most [...]

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Work For Hire Clauses: Assignment of Copyright

This week, we’re focusing on ‘works for hire’ and the contracts that control them. As I mentioned yesterday, since the Copyright Act limits works for hire to specific types of commissioned works, clients may rely on a complete assignment of copyright to make sure that they wind up with control of the work in question. [...]

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