User blog comment:Blacknumber1/Are We the Next Great "Well" of horror writers for film and T.V.?/@comment-26054278-20150708013953/@comment-25428589-20150711123354

I'm afraid you're incorrect, Creepy Thomas, if you're referring to stories published here.

No, they don't have to pay you for your story, unless you've explicitly changed the license of your stories.

Everything here is released under CC BY-SA unless otherwise stated. This means that, by releasing your stories here, you have already given permission for anyone to use your story for free, as long as they give you proper credit and share alike (they don't even need to ask you to use your work, since you've technically given them permission already)

People can change the license of their story to CC BY-NC (which means it can't be used commercially) or CC BY-NC-ND (which means it can't be used commercially and no derivatives can be created), which force movie studios to get permission (and pay you, if you so desire) first. We don't support licenses other than those (except public domain, I guess).

The question of whether (morally) people should be paid before their stories are used is a whole other beast, but legally, no-one needs to be given any money (if they've not changed the license).