I've been told and read that any sort of original writing published anywhere on online is copyrighted by that person. For example if I posted a poem on fb or a story here its copyrighted and protected from plagerism. Any truth in any of that?
so long as you don't waive the copyright of course, or assign it to another party, and with the caveat that its not work for hire (ie stuff generated in the course of your employment may be your employers copyright depending on what it says in your contract)
Read up on the terms of service where you host your publishing's though. Places like FB can take your work and use it however they like, assuming they have a reason to.
I think the idea is that if you post it somewhere and somebody tries to claim it as their work, you can show when you posted it, and that it was earlier than when they did. What was it I heard—people used to mail a manuscript to themselves so the postmark serves as an official date. That doesn't sound right though, the date stamp would be on the envelope, not on the manuscript itself. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? (Obviously I don't)
You want to be careful, though. While your work is copyrighted the second you write it down, first rights also are gone the second you post it anywhere. There is some debate on this, and I'm not looking to get into that with anyone. @Aceldama -- I know you are interested in publishing your work. Some places might not care as much as others, but everywhere I've published I've had to sign a contract saying the work at hand had never appeared in online or print anywhere. Sure, some have argued that there is some sort of protection since only forum members can see the workshop section, but this is still a public forum. Anyone can set up an account which means anyone can access whatever you put up. This would not have been okay with the publishers that have bought my work and would have killed the sale. I think it would really suck to get that far only to lose that publication. Think about it. What publishers are buying are first rights. They are serious about this and serious about being the first to put it out there in the world. That's what they are paying for. If you want to try out the workshop, maybe you should do so with some practice poems and not the same poems you want to submit to magazines or journals. My post will likely be followed by others saying something different. I am speaking from my experience and what other industry professionals have said about things like this. I would be much more worried about giving up those first rights than any copyright issues when it comes to putting your stuff out there.
poor mans copyright is worthless ... posting it on a forum would be equally worthless as its way too easily altered if you're in america register your work... if you're in the uk you can depend on things like previous drafts (and the date you uploaded it to amazon if you're self publishing)
