No Byline?

[Amy W]

If I understand the licensing terms, when a customer buys an article for use, he has to include the author's byline, right? I just googled an article I sold recently, under a use license, but there isn't a byline to be seen. Can the buyer do this? The whole reason I offer articles for usage in the first place is for the byline.

Thanks,
Amy

[Ed]

You have to include the byline in the article body/in the file if you want customers to use your byline upon purchase of a usage license. Do you do this?

Ed

[Elizabeth Ann West]

Ed,

I ran into a slight variation of this rule. My file always has the title of the article then "By: Elizabeth Ann West" underneath it. However, I do not put the title and by line in the long summary as I thought it to be redundant and against policy. I had a customer buy an article for usage rights, after we had discussed a lower rate for the by line. Well, when she received the article, she said she was going to demand a refund because she didn't know it was a by lined article from the long summary, and I wouldn't agree to her removing the by line after purchase. She also accused me of false advertising.

I thought it was policy here though to not reprint the title and author name in the long summary, but now I can't find where I read that. Should I now put the title and my author name in the long summary to prevent any future problems? Or, should the buyers realize when they are purchasing use rights, they are likely getting an article with a by line attached to it?

Always Smiling,
Elizabeth

[Ed]

The latter. She can't claim she wrote it under usage rights; that's only under full rights, so there shouldn't have been a problem with the byline. If she wants to quibble about bylines, she should be purchasing full rights every time. However, there's no rule against including title and author in the long summary.

Irritated that this happened to you,
Ed

[Elizabeth Ann West]

Support worked it out... I was just asking to avoid it in the future. I wasn't too terribly upset by it, and stuck up for myself to the client, especially as it was for a $10 usage rights.... I showed support where we even spoke about I agreed to the price only because I was getting a by-line.

I suppose this was a one off, since it sounds like most buyers expect a byline if they buy only usage rights.

[Ed]

Great. I'm glad it worked out for you.

[Amy W]

Thanks for clarifying, Ed. I just can't remember ever reading about byline inclusion in the guidelines. I assumed that the buyer would include the byline on his own. This happened to me before - a buyer including my byline - for one of my older articles. Though I have always wondered how he knew my full name, since I just go by Amy W here.

Thanks again,
Amy

[Ed]

That's the problem if you don't include titles or bylines in the file. The customer probably hasn't made note of these particulars. They don't have to include it if it isn't in the attached file - after all, some authors don't care/don't want their byline attached to their articles, and they may leave off this information.