creative writing,copyright laws on the net

raher1

i am interested in creative writing,but is wondering how safe it is the put it on the net,what are the copyright laws.it maybe rubbish to some but ya never know

Orion101

I've done a bit of reading into this, but am not a legal pro.

I'm pretty sure that copyright for an original work is bestowed on an author when they complete it. But you have to prove it's your work.

A lot of people do things like posting it to themselves before making it publically available. Some say that this does nothing, but I imagine if you can show a court several drafts of a story in sealed and dated envelopes, it would go a way to showing you are the original author.

I'm guessing if the court is happy that you are the original author, the person who stole from your work, assuming it isn't an exact copy, would have the opportunity to try to prove that they developed their story completely independently of yours.

Another concern is that if you post the entirety of something to the internet, magazines or publishers will be a lot less interested in publishing it. This would be a greater concern for me that the possibility of someone stealing my work. It's a catch 22, because you need feedback from others to hone your work. The best solution to minimise risk on both fronts seems to be joining a members only writing group (like boards.ie writeclub).