Reprint rights are the non-exclusive rights that you give to a print publication—a newspaper or a magazine—to publish your manuscript after it’s already appeared in another publication. First rights, sometimes called first North American serial rights, are offered to the very first publication that prints that piece. After that, if you have maintained your copyright, you can offer reprint rights to other publications.

So your articles can appear in Trade Publication Number 1, and then in Trade Publication Numbers 2 through 102 in exactly the same format, with the same expression of ideas.

Second reprint rights are the rights the other publications get. (This is different from the author who owns the copyright right to reprint one of the published pieces.) You can offer your article, if you’ve maintained the copyright, to another bar association non-competing publications throughout the country, and they can reprint it in exactly that same format.

For more revelations regarding reprint rights, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.