Good point, ChickenFreak. But I would like to get paid for my efforts. I'm not sure whether increasing my reputation online would be the means to that end. Have you (or anyone in the forum) ever heard of someone starting out online and, with the momentum of an increased reputation, been able to jump to the paid side of the business?
I'm not sure how it would hurt you if you put something up for free, and someone copied it to their own web site. Would you lose traffic to your own site? Would the story decrease in value? Or something else? If you're going to put something up for free on the Internet, I think the smart thing to do is to include your name and web address clearly visible in the text. Chances are anyone who copies your story won't bother to remove them, and anyone who likes your story will know where to get more. Pirate sites already have tens of thousands of published e-books to put up, and they don't seem to bother to remove copyright notes and author names from those.
Julie & Julia Julie & Julia is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Nora Ephron starring Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Amy Adams, and Chris Messina. The film contrasts the life of chef Julia Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook in 365 days, a challenge she described on her popular blog that would make her a published author. Ephron's screenplay is adapted from two books: My Life in France, Child's autobiography written with Alex Prud'homme, and a memoir by Powell documenting online her daily experiences cooking each of the 524 recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she later began reworking that blog, The Julie/Julia Project.[2] Both of these books were written and published in the same time frame (2004–06). The film is the first major motion picture based on a blog.[3] From Wikipedia, So yeah someone did cross over the the paid side of the business but I think she was very lucky
reggie... what is 'america's guide of america'?... did you mean the writers guild of america [WGA]? jh... nothing can protect you from someone stealing your work and doing anything with it they want to, without your permission... copyright laws can only protect you from someone getting away with it, should you take them to court for claiming your work as their own, or for using it in some other way, without permission... and registering your copyright is usually only done after you have a publisher, who then does the registering for you... the only common exceptions are for songwriters and screenwriters, who often register their works with WGA and/or LOC...
Your legal protections are the same. With agents and editors you can hopefully also rely on their professionalism.
I don't have mine printed out (I stupidly shredded my printed drafts because I was afraid someone would find them and--guess what?--steal the work). But I have every draft (all ten in some cases) saved on my computer to show the evolution of the story. I hope that's enough for a court in case it comes to that, but printed drafts are better. I've started saving the drafts as printouts, but only in later stories (12 and up) of a series I've worked on for some years. And I don't have the compunction to re-print the other eleven and work through another draft just to have the old stories on printouts, too. But I will print each one (probably one a month to spread out the cost of paper and ink) and keep them in my closet as early drafts. Anyway, all that to say save your physical copies and your electronic ones.
It seems people worry a lot about this. I never really have. But then, I'm selective about sharing work online. I figure if anyone were to steal anything, it'd be my fault for being careless.
There is no way to absolutely prevent someone copying your work. If you publish online, it will be very easy for people to do so - just look at how many people steal music online. The best you can do is document your work and have it witnessed. If you're going to publish it yourself and it is important to you, register the copyright so that you can sue infringers.
That would be a little different, though. In the case of writing, if I distributed something online, I wouldn't mind if people reproduced it and put it on their sites or printed it to read on the bus, etc. In fact, I'd love it as long as my name was still stamped on it. I, and probably every other writer, isn't concerned with a story being copied everywhere. We're more concerned that someone would claim that story as their own. In the case of music, they're not claiming they wrote it. Nobody claims to have written "I Gotta Feeling" (well, except the Black Eyed Peas). They're just taking it. Copying and stealing are different in this context. But your point still stands: releasing a manuscript online is still loaded with risk.
Taking the music is still stealing, however, and with no disregard for the rights of the author with respect to the work. That basic disregard for the author is the same as what would be necessary to steal a writer's work. But if someone stole your written work and claimed it for their own, I agree that would be a significant problem. I think it is very rare with respect to traditional publishing routes. Editors and agents are interested in stealing work from people. Publishing online makes it easy for someone to steal and present as their own. You would want documentation and witnesses to support your claim, and remember that in the U.S. you have to register your copyright before you can sue someone (and in fact you should register it shortly after publication). If you go through a traditional publisher, they'll take care of registration for you, but if you self-publish then you'll have to make certain of those details on your own.
A point that is worth making, even if it bruises some egos: Very little of what is posted for free is of any real value to a thief. It's too easy to get caught, and the cost to their reputation when they get caught is not worth the pittance they might possibly manage to gain from the theft. And that doesn't even consider the monetary cost they could incur if the author litigates. An agent would surely lose his or her business if caught stealing even one potential client's writing.
besides which, the vast majority of unpublished material isn't worth stealing, sorry to say... and the thief would still have to go through the time/money-consuming process of trying to sell it, with little to no chance of making a penny on it... registration of copyright in the us would most likely be upheld by any country that is also a signatory to the berne convention...
