If you are an expert in your field and you want to reprint an article that you’re quoted in, or an article written about you, it’s natural to want copies of them. Those are wonderful credibility enhancing mechanisms. But you must be careful when reprinting articles not to lose your credibility.

This is an issue beyond the law. Are you competing with the publication, and are they losing profits? Do they have actual damages? They probably are not going to bother to sue some small fry person. But even if they don’t sue you, when you have a publication, or a copy, that doesn’t look like it’s an official reprint, or doesn’t say, “reprinted with the permission of” you lose credibility among those people in the consuming public who understand something about copyright law. So even when it’s an article that you’re quoted in, or the article is about you, you need to get reprints.

These are “reprint services,” and many newspapers, business journals and magazines offer this service to people like you. They will give you slick-looking reprints with their nameplate. Sometimes, if the article is about you and four other people, they will highlight the parts of the article in yellow that pertain to you.

For more ways to enhance your credibility rather than detract from it, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.