Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Florida

Re: Copyright

They can certainly make the claim. Whether their claim will succeed depends on what your employment contract was with the newspaper. An article prepared by an employee in the course of his or her employment is "a work made for hire". The employer is the "author" and therefore owns the copyright.

Even if you prepared the article as a freelance writer and not as an employee, the newspaper owner may be the "author" and copyright owner. The newspaper owner would have to meet two conditions: (1) the article is a contribution to a collective work (i.e., the newspaper) and (2) you and the newspaper had a written agreement, before the article was published, that the article would belong to the newspaper.

Even if you could prevail, you would have to defend yourself against the newspaper were they to file a lawsuit. Unless the magazine will defend you, you should try to settle the matter. The best way might be to point out to the newspaper that, though the subjects of the articles may be the same, you have rewritten them completely so that they are no longer substantially similar to what the newspaper published.