Copyright on stories

[Devilius]

In case anyone noticed, there's a © after the author's name that follows the title on the first page.

What right in RL does that give to an author over his submission? Does that help in combating plagiarism and settling disputes over the ownership? Is every submission walked through the copyright process before they give that © on it? Or is it just for show? (Hopefully not)

 

[sr71plt]

It has no effect whatsoever in the United States unless you've actually formally registered the copyright. In fact, in the United States, since the Berne Convention on copyright came into effect (1989--making copyright effective upon creation, but, in the United States, giving that no teeth because you can't go to court without a copyright registration), using the copyright symbol became illegal unless you actually have registered a copyright with the U.S. Copyright office.

Not that anything is done about that here.

 

[Devilius]

So is that © stamp illegal on Lit?

 

[KayceeCharles]

Practically speaking, anything "published" (posted here, on reddit, on Fanfic, on a blog, whatever) is considered copyrighted by the author.

One of the rights that LIT asks you to assign them is allow them to go after sites that blatantly steal stuff from here if they spotted your story elsewhere.

For PRACTICAL purposes, that doesn't mean much. Sites that steal will steal, just as places that steal movies and whatnot will continue to steal despite continued efforts to go after Torrent pirate sites.

I think sr71 is confusing REGISTERED copyright mark (R) vs. plain copyright (C)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_trademark_symbol

 

[sr71plt]

So is that © stamp illegal on Lit?

Illegal in the United States, if you haven't actually registered it with the Copyright Office. That's what it now means--it's a declaration that you've formally registered it. I don't know how it's handled outside the United States, and I don't think the United States will do anything about it either. The U.S. courts want to have as little to do with copyright as possible. So it's pretty much a fig leaf here. You certainly wouldn't recover anything by suing even if you formally register it, because you have valued it a $0 by putting it on a free-use Web site.

 

[sr71plt]

I think sr71 is confusing REGISTERED copyright mark (R) vs. plain copyright (C)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_trademark_symbol

No. You've confused copyright with trademark. They aren't the same thing.

And lots of luck thinking this Web site is going to do anything about stolen stories. (For starters it's close to impossible for you to prove you actually wrote it unless you have a formal copyright registration in hand--and if you don't register it and someone steals it and registers it, it's theirs.) There's now a sticky at the top of the AH telling you what to try to do yourself to have a stolen version taken down (http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1055555).

But, again, once you have it posted on a free-use Internet site, you've pretty much dumped it into the public domain. My way of minimizing the damage is to publish it first in the marketplace--which both takes the likely profit off the top and establishes an earliest ownership date--and only later to free-use sites, if at all.

Now, with these messages, I'm not going to get into arguments over this. Use the information as you want to--or not.

 

[Devilius]

I have no intentions to sue someone over a free copy of smut but I think I'll have a problem if some hobo tries to sell that on Amazon for a price under his name.

Just wanted to know what authors can do and what they can't.

 

[KayceeCharles]

No. You've confused copyright with trademark. They aren't the same thing.

Got me on that one. Misread the Wiki entry. mea culpa

Most countries in the world subscribe to the Berne convention of copyright, which accepts automatic copyright upon publication, does not even require the (C) or "copyright" notice to be displayed. But most people do it for tradition.

To answer the original question... Nobody is supposed to plagiarize stories here and sell them on Amazon, and smut on Amazon often ends up getting adult-labelled. However, there's nothing preventing them from, the term is "filing off the serial numbers", i.e. rewriting them enough so it no longer resembles the source material and publish that instead.

(I'm sure you heard the story that 50 shades was originally a Twilight fanfic, right? That's heck a lot of serial number filing)

 

[Handley_Page]

In the UK, we have the "Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988" which is quite well detailed.
See Wiki..

Registration at "Stationers Hall" is another method, but this involves written documents, dated & sealed [and paid for].

Once an Author stamps his work, it's his(or even hers) - regardless.
"In accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, <name> asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work."
Or something like that. Ogg might have a better phrase.

Not that this means a deal in the USA; one needs to be an organisation the size of Apple to complain (USA dealings have always been rather strange; at one time it was considered that no such copyright protection existed).

On a slightly wider note, it is very tempting to twist the tail of those who 'complain' about not having been told about this or that danger, including the expression that "no Authors were harmed in the writing of this story" or references to almost any 'dangerous' activity or Health & Safety risk.

 

[oggbashan]

Most of my stories posted on Literotica start with this statement. That is sufficient to establish my copyright under the Berne Convention and is valid in the UK.

Copyright Oggbashan September 2016

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

But, as people have posted above, it is effectively meaningless in the USA.

In reality it is effectively meaningless anywhere if someone wants to steal my work. All I can do is start a DMCA report if I find my story posted elsewhere by someone else. I could sue in the UK, paying expensive lawyers, but it would be pointless. I have suffered NO financial loss so no compensation would be payable. Even if I could prove damage to reputation, the thief probably hasn't got sufficient assets to pay my legal bills.

Searching for "Copyright Oggbashan" shows that the thieves don't even bother to delete that phrase.

 

[ishtat]

In reality Og it is no more easy to run a copyright case as plaintiff in the UK than in USA. Judges have a lot of discretion and can refer parties very firmly to commercial negotiations or resolution. If said parties are awkward the judge can part hear and 'indicate' how he/she thinks things will go, then suggest to the parties that they really would be better off sorting it out themselves. Courts really don't like these diputes.

 

[oggbashan]

In reality Og it is no more easy to run a copyright case as plaintiff in the UK than in USA. Judges have a lot of discretion and can refer parties very firmly to commercial negotiations or resolution. If said parties are awkward the judge can part hear and 'indicate' how he/she thinks things will go, then suggest to the parties that they really would be better off sorting it out themselves. Courts really don't like these diputes.

The difference is in the application of the Berne Convention.

In the UK I automatically have copyright on my work.

In the US I don't. I have to register it and pay a fee.

In the UK I have legal standing although in practice going to court would be expensive. It is possible, expensive, useless and not advisable.

In the US unless I have registered copyright I have NO legal standing in a copyright dispute. I CAN'T go to court. Even if I had registered my copyright I would be unable to go to court because no US court would hear the case.

So in reality my copyright is meaningless. All my statement might do is help with a DMCA.

 

[TamLin01]

Practically speaking, anything "published" (posted here, on reddit, on Fanfic, on a blog, whatever) is considered copyrighted by the author.

More than that: You've got a copyright on your work the moment it's finished. If you have 500,000 words of unpublished works sitting on your hard drive, it's all copyrighted material, and will be for decades. People on the Internet (always the world's most authoritative source on everything...) will tell you that you have to publish or register your work, but that simply isn't true. What you create belongs to you.

Now, the question of whether you can PROVE your copyright (say, in court) is another matter...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

More than that: You've got a copyright on your work the moment it's finished. If you have 500,000 words of unpublished works sitting on your hard drive, it's all copyrighted material, and will be for decades. People on the Internet (always the world's most authoritative source on everything...) will tell you that you have to publish or register your work, but that simply isn't true. What you create belongs to you.

Now, the question of whether you can PROVE your copyright (say, in court) is another matter...

And that is the distinction, you own the work you created, whether you can prove that in court is iffy, unless you register it with the copyright office and even then the court could decide not to hear the case and you're out of luck.

Then again, the FBI does investigate copyright violation, but usually only were big money is involved. Copyright violation is a criminal offense and punishable by fines and prison time.

 

[Bramblethorn]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/412

In any action under this title, other than an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A(a), an action for infringement of the copyright of a work that has been preregistered under section 408(f) before the commencement of the infringement and that has an effective date of registration not later than the earlier of 3 months after the first publication of the work or 1 month after the copyright owner has learned of the infringement, or an action instituted under section 411(c), no award of statutory damages or of attorney’s fees, as provided by sections 504 and 505, shall be made for—
(1) any infringement of copyright in an unpublished work commenced before the effective date of its registration; or
(2) any infringement of copyright commenced after first publication of the work and before the effective date of its registration, unless such registration is made within three months after the first publication of the work.

In other words: as others have said above, if you haven't registered your work within three months of publication, your options for redress are very limited. (The three exceptions listed there aren't likely to be applicable to a Literotica story.)

Side note: if your stories are published here and somebody tries to sell them on Amazon, you don't need to assert copyright to get them taken down. It's against Amazon policy for self-pub authors to charge for their work if it's available free elsewhere, so you can just report the story as "cheaper price elsewhere".

 

[Bramblethorn]

More than that: You've got a copyright on your work the moment it's finished. If you have 500,000 words of unpublished works sitting on your hard drive, it's all copyrighted material, and will be for decades. People on the Internet (always the world's most authoritative source on everything...) will tell you that you have to publish or register your work, but that simply isn't true. What you create belongs to you.

Now, the question of whether you can PROVE your copyright (say, in court) is another matter...

It's not just about proof. Even if you can provide cast-iron evidence that you're the original author, and the other guy confesses to ripping off your work, you cannot claim damages under US law unless you've registered the copyright.

 

[PervOtaku]

In the wild wild west of internet creative works, it's less about being able to take legal action and more about just being able to demonstrate which is the original and which is the rip-off, and hope the site hosting the rip-off are decent fellows about this sort of thing and will take the rip-off down. Plus there's usually no money at stake, just credibility, reputation, and the ability of people who like the thing you made to find the other things you made.

I like to use Creative Commons copyright notices. It still doesn't make anything actually enforceable, but at least it's official notice of "If you're going to steal my shit, at least leave my name on it, please".

Some humor site whose name I forget became infamous for reposting webcomics while cropping off the author's name and website information. That's the kind of thing that pisses people off most.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

In the wild wild west of internet creative works, it's less about being able to take legal action and more about just being able to demonstrate which is the original and which is the rip-off, and hope the site hosting the rip-off are decent fellows about this sort of thing and will take the rip-off down. Plus there's usually no money at stake, just credibility, reputation, and the ability of people who like the thing you made to find the other things you made.

I like to use Creative Commons copyright notices. It still doesn't make anything actually enforceable, but at least it's official notice of "If you're going to steal my shit, at least leave my name on it, please".

Some humor site whose name I forget became infamous for reposting webcomics while cropping off the author's name and website information. That's the kind of thing that pisses people off most.

Or all the scum that take your stories and publish them on Amazon for profit.

 

[Hypoxia]

Ripoffs are Traditional

A fascinating article in the Smithsonian says this is precisely how American newspapers evolved from colonial times. A paper printed a piece. A printer in the next county saw the piece, then cut and pasted and re-published it verbatim. Printer in the next county did the same. That's how news, views, screeds, calls for revolution etc went viral.

Another historical note: Nations not respecting copyright tend to develop technically faster than nations with strong intellectual property protection. Examples include Germany vs Britain after the industrial revolution, and China vs the Western world now. Yeah, upstarts threaten to overtake leaders by stealing info. It's war.

As mentioned, unless big money is involved, copyright is pretty useless. So don't post your masterpiece here. Everything online is ripe for plucking. Post here and figure you'll get plucked.

 

[Hard_Rom]

I heard that an easy way is to send your work to yourself via registered mail. Then stash the envelope and contents away.

 

[TxRad]

I heard that an easy way is to send your work to yourself via registered mail. Then stash the envelope and contents away.

Nope, no legal standing whatsoever. It might have some bearing if the letter isn't opened but it's an old wives tale.

 

[oggbashan]

A fascinating article in the Smithsonian says this is precisely how American newspapers evolved from colonial times. A paper printed a piece. A printer in the next county saw the piece, then cut and pasted and re-published it verbatim. Printer in the next county did the same. That's how news, views, screeds, calls for revolution etc went viral.

Another historical note: Nations not respecting copyright tend to develop technically faster than nations with strong intellectual property protection. Examples include Germany vs Britain after the industrial revolution, and China vs the Western world now. Yeah, upstarts threaten to overtake leaders by stealing info. It's war.

As mentioned, unless big money is involved, copyright is pretty useless. So don't post your masterpiece here. Everything online is ripe for plucking. Post here and figure you'll get plucked.

19th Century America was one of the worst offenders for copyright rip-offs of written work.

Charles Dickens and Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan) had to go to extraordinary lengths to protect their copyright in the US - and they failed because American publishers didn't care about copyright.

 

[Learin]

Side note: if your stories are published here and somebody tries to sell them on Amazon, you don't need to assert copyright to get them taken down. It's against Amazon policy for self-pub authors to charge for their work if it's available free elsewhere, so you can just report the story as "cheaper price elsewhere".

I didn't know that. Thanks.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I didn't know that. Thanks.

Neither did I. Thankyou so much, that's actually rather useful to know.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Nope, no legal standing whatsoever. It might have some bearing if the letter isn't opened but it's an old wives tale.

In the 1950s Stanley Kubrick sent himself copies of his own scripts in sealed envelopes, then kept them sealed in a bank vault. The post mark was enough to specify the date, the sealing enough to demonstrate the contents were thus sent on that date. It's safe to say that if Kubrick did it, it was a legit protection.

Subsequently, he wrote water-tight contracts to protect every thing he did, but in the early years, it was a cheap protection of his copyright. This is the guy who bought rights to books, and then never told people he owned them. He owned the US rights to the novelette that turned into Eyes Wide Shut thirty years before he made the movie.