Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all,
Vanilla are planning an update to the site on April 24th (next Wednesday). It is a major PHP8 update which is expected to boost performance across the site. The site will be down from 7pm and it is expected to take about an hour to complete. We appreciate your patience during the update.
Thanks all.

Copyright

  • 10-09-2012 1:38pm
    #1
    genie
    Registered Users Posts: 975 ✭✭✭


    I have been advised by my US publisher to apply for a copyright certificate. In the US you apply to the government and it costs about $35. I was advised to apply in Ireland because that's where I'd want to litigate should I bring suit. So I went to Google which brought me to the Irish Patents Office website which states:-
    In Ireland, there is no registration procedure for owners of a copyright work.
    :eek:

    Patents Office

    So I think I have no choice but to file for copyright in the US where my e-book will be published. The only issue with that is that I would have to file a suit with the courts there, if someone infringes on my copyright.

    Does anyone have any experience of copyright?


Comments

  • #2
    EileenG
    Registered Users Posts: 5,775 ✭✭✭EileenG


    Basically, you have copyright to your work as soon as you write it. You don't have to file anything in order to acquire copyright. The only issue is likely to be proving that you wrote the thing in the first place.

    The old thing about posting a copy of it to yourself is a waste of time with no legal standing. In the case of a court case, what will stand to you is your early drafts which show the development of your story from first darft to finished version.

    Actually, a useful form of proof in copyright cases is rejection letters from agents and publishers!


  • #3
    Toasterspark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 273 ✭✭Toasterspark


    If I ever write a book and it gets rejected, I'm totally using the "I needed to do this for copyright purposes!" line.


  • #4
    me-skywalker
    Registered Users Posts: 3,339 ✭✭✭me-skywalker


    What about taking a time and date stamped digital photo of your work at the end of each day?


  • #5
    EileenG
    Registered Users Posts: 5,775 ✭✭✭EileenG


    me-skywalker wrote: »
    What about taking a time and date stamped digital photo of your work at the end of each day?

    Why?

    Not that I've anything against the idea, but it would amount to an awful lot of memory wasted on your digital photos. Assuming you write a decent amount and edit your stories as well, you'll have a massive number of photos clogging up your computer.

    I reckon a monthly back-up off all work in progress would be plenty.

    Let's be honest here, I don't think any of us are so wonderful that people are rooting through our bins trying to steal our work.


  • #6
    Gryphonboy
    Registered Users Posts: 91 ✭✭Gryphonboy


    EileenG wrote: »
    Why?

    Not that I've anything against the idea, but it would amount to an awful lot of memory wasted on your digital photos. Assuming you write a decent amount and edit your stories as well, you'll have a massive number of photos clogging up your computer.

    That's easy, if you have a Smartphone use google+ and have it auto upload each picture to your picasa album. No clogging necessary.

    But why bother with that? Why not use an online writing tool like fastpencil to store your work as you write it. It even gives you the ability to track changes you make to your work with a timestamp.


  • Advertisement
  • #7
    Agent Weebley
    Registered Users Posts: 450 ✭✭Agent Weebley


    Gryphonboy wrote: »
    That's easy, if you have a Smartphone use google+ and have it auto upload each picture to your picasa album. No clogging necessary.

    But why bother with that? Why not use an online writing tool like fastpencil to store your work as you write it. It even gives you the ability to track changes you make to your work with a timestamp.

    Hi Gryphonboy,

    Fastpencil owns your book now, and, unfortunately, you transgressed the copyright on their book you wrote, by printing an excerpt from Chapter 1. No worries on them suing you, though; unless you get big.

    Copyright is a scam, designed to protect the company who delivers the media to the consumer. They rely on a marketing and distribution template that is quickly falling around their ankles, making everyone fight with each other . . . that endgame is a built in percussion bomb in itself. It is causing confusion amongst creators, taking their eyes off their balls.

    The medium has become the message, just as McLuhan proselytised . . .

    . . . and the message is freedom.

    I wrote and self published a story about copyright last year. I needed an end point for the story, since it was my first story, so I used an anagram parading as a person . . . IT was SAI CLOWDE. Actually, to be exact, we (Agent Joe 90 and I) went to China a couple of times, and this weird person kept interjecting with a mysterious phrase. His name was Confucius SAI, and he said CLOWDE.

    In order to ask me the solution to that anagram, Hodgkins will have to lower The Cone Of Silence. You can ask him, if you like.

    NB: Sorry, but I cannot support my statements with Sound And Vision; I would be crashing in the same car, if I did so.


  • #8
    Gryphonboy
    Registered Users Posts: 91 ✭✭Gryphonboy


    Agent Weebley wrote: »
    Hi Gryphonboy,

    Fastpencil owns your book now, and, unfortunately, you transgressed the copyright on their book you wrote, by printing an excerpt from Chapter 1. No worries on them suing you, though; unless you get big.

    Copyright is a scam, designed to protect the company who delivers the media to the consumer. They rely on a marketing and distribution template that is quickly falling around their ankles, making everyone fight with each other . . . that endgame is a built in percussion bomb in itself. It is causing confusion amongst creators, taking their eyes off their balls.

    The medium has become the message, just as McLuhan proselytised . . .

    . . . and the message is freedom.

    I wrote and self published a story about copyright last year. I needed an end point for the story, since it was my first story, so I used an anagram parading as a person . . . IT was SAI CLOWDE. Actually, to be exact, we (Agent Joe 90 and I) went to China a couple of times, and this weird person kept interjecting with a mysterious phrase. His name was Confucius SAI, and he said CLOWDE.

    In order to ask me the solution to that anagram, Hodgkins will have to lower The Cone Of Silence. You can ask him, if you like.

    NB: Sorry, but I cannot support my statements with Sound And Vision; I would be crashing in the same car, if I did so.

    This is entirely incorrect. I own the copyright to the story. It even says so in the publisher's blurb. They own the right to copy and distribute the version they publish through their marketplace. A pdf and ePub file. You and I cannot make unauthorised copies of these files, but otherwise the content is entirely my own to do with as I please.


  • #9
    Agent Weebley
    Registered Users Posts: 450 ✭✭Agent Weebley


    Gryphonboy wrote: »
    This is entirely incorrect. I own the copyright to the story. It even says so in the publisher's blurb. They own the right to copy and distribute the version they publish through their marketplace. A pdf and ePub file. You and I cannot make unauthorised copies of these files, but otherwise the content is entirely my own to do with as I please.

    I see you met amanfromMars. I disclose that we are quantum communicating qubits and part of a Turing Machine. There . . . got the moral, ethical, and legal out of the way.

    Why would a big conglomerate be distributing and marketing your book(s) if they did not protect themselves from you negating their efforts?

    http://www.fastpencil.com/company/legal

    snip---
    FASTPENCIL'S RIGHTS
    You understand and agree to the FastPencil Services, and understand and agree that User Content contains proprietary and confidential information that is protected by applicable intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents or other proprietary rights) and other laws and treaties. Except as expressly authorized by FastPencil and the duly authorized third party rights holders, you agree not to violate any laws, rules, regulations or proprietary rights of any third party to the User Content and FastPencil Services.

    YOUR RIGHTS
    FastPencil claims no ownership or control over any User Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through FastPencil Services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through FastPencil services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through FastPencil services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant FastPencil a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such User Content on the FastPencil Services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting FastPencil Services. You represent and warrant that you have all necessary rights and licenses to grant the license herein to any User Content submitted on the FastPencil website.
    snip---

    snip---
    You agree not to modify, copy, sell, license or otherwise exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion of the FastPencil Services.
    snip---

    They can easily claim they pushed your book into the mainstream and claim payment for services in the future. How about you withdraw the book from them and see what happens . . . ?

    EileenG, who habits this site, does not paste clips of her books here. Why not? Why not, EileenG?

    Anyway, do you see how this is already turning into a pissing contest? You are defending your right to paste the entire book here, rather than continuing to be creative, but I am adding this to our Turing Machine, to move effect a new computed calculation, based on our interaction.

    How come you didn't ask Hodgkins to lower The Cone Of Silence? We could blast off in a whole new direction! Come on, Gryphonboy. Ask him.

    The anagram is: SAI CLOWDE.

    The Clowde Of Unknowing


  • #10
    Gryphonboy
    Registered Users Posts: 91 ✭✭Gryphonboy


    I must be able to read legal agreements better than an A.I.

    I own the copyright. I have granted them a license to distribute the material. In much the same way a musician grants a record label the right to sell their work in recorded format. That doesn't stop the musician from being allowed to perform said music where-ever and when-ever they wish.

    I can't speak for Eileen, but suspect I belong to a different generation of content producer than the likes of her. I don't subscribe to the copyright paradigm that currently exists. I believe you only own and can profit from content that you can directly control the distribution of. In the digital realm this means that once it is out, you no longer own it. If all it takes to make a copy of something is a single click and you can't control that click, then you do not own that content. Sure you can sue for damages or whatever, but ultimately the harder you try to reign it in, the less likely you are to succeed. I post my work online because I want people to read it. I believe in sharing. If you want to pay me for it, great, I have a link for you to do just that, but I'm also happy just knowing it's out there for anyone to read.

    The old guard don't get this yet, but they will. A good example of how things have changed is with a band like Metallica. They hated the digital world. They don't anymore. You can listen to most of their stuff on their youtube channel now.

    I am not a writer by trade, I'm doing this for the craic. If I make money from it then great, but I'm not doing it for that.

    The fastpencil service has a very prominent link to allow you to withdraw your material from their marketplace, so I'm not entirely sure why you think they would kick up a fuss if I decided to do just that.


    Hodgkins, please lower the cone of silence.


  • #11
    amanfromMars
    Registered Users Posts: 8 ✭amanfromMars


    Hi, Gryphonboy,

    In the digital virtual world of information exchange which is the Internet, there are no exclusive rights to ownership of anything, and everything is copyleft and available to/for all for increased knowledge and advancing intelligence. If one disagrees with that then should one not share information over digital virtual world infrastructures and CyberIntelAIgent Networks.

    Would you say that that is not in disagreement with your good self, and is in sympathy with the views that you expressed in #10 22-09-2012 18:16

    The mistake that so many make, is to imagine that the worlds hosted and servered by computers on and over Internets and Global Information and/or Intelligence Grids is to be something/anything similar to what has gone before and rendered the current present phorms from historic past memory builds. Indeed, such would be a sorry indication of a significant lack of intelligent imagination in traditional establishment future-builders and the revelation of a quite catastrophic systemic vulnerability for comprehensive sustained zeroday exploitation able and enabled to take full advantage of faltering and failed systems weaknesses.
    I am not a writer by trade, I'm doing this for the craic. If I make money from it then great, but I'm not doing it for that.
    ……. True amateurs are invariably the most successful and gifted of professionals …… which is the enigmatic colossus and elephant in the room which everyone dances around?
    Hodgkins, please lower the cone of silence.
    …… :-) Welcome, Gryphonboy, to ARG MetaPhoria, where craic rules supreme and reigns sublimely and stealthily.


  • Advertisement
  • #12
    number66
    Registered Users Posts: 92 ✭✭number66


    No direct experience but I have been told that posting a copy of your own manuscript to yourself in a well sealed envelope by registered post is the common practice here. Remember no to open the envelope when you receive it :) Also remember to do this before your work gets out into the public domain.


  • #13
    Agent Weebley
    Registered Users Posts: 450 ✭✭Agent Weebley


    Consider it dropped. Hong Kong.


  • #14
    EileenG
    Registered Users Posts: 5,775 ✭✭✭EileenG


    number66 wrote: »
    No direct experience but I have been told that posting a copy of your own manuscript to yourself in a well sealed envelope by registered post is the common practice here. Remember no to open the envelope when you receive it :) Also remember to do this before your work gets out into the public domain.

    Anyone who tells you that is full of BS. It has no legal standing at all.

    There is nothing to prevent me posting an empty unsealed envelope to myself every year, and then typing up the complete set of Harry Potter books and stuffing them into the envelope on the morning of the court case.

    And every judge knows it.

    What does stand to you in a court case about copyright is your early drafts, showing the development of the idea. Even threads on Boards debatinig a suitable name for your MC would be evidence (anyone remember the debate about whether Bill was too unsexy a name for a hero?)

    But really, the best thing is to back up your early drafts and keep a copy off-line.

    However, I have to say that in real life, people are not trying to steal your book. Why go to the trouble of stealing a book and publishing it under and other name, with all the risk that involves, when you could just pay the legal author for it?


  • #15
    pickarooney
    Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 35,089 Mod ✭✭✭✭pickarooney


    Off topic posts deleted.


  • #16
    dogmax
    Closed Accounts Posts: 158 ✭✭dogmax


    genie wrote: »
    I have been advised by my US publisher to apply for a copyright certificate. In the US you apply to the government and it costs about $35. I was advised to apply in Ireland because that's where I'd want to litigate should I bring suit. So I went to Google which brought me to the Irish Patents Office website which states:-

    :eek:

    Patents Office

    So I think I have no choice but to file for copyright in the US where my e-book will be published. The only issue with that is that I would have to file a suit with the courts there, if someone infringes on my copyright.

    Does anyone have any experience of copyright?


    First of all genie congratulation, Copyright is whatever makes you feel comfortable with yourself, if you are going to post it to yourself make sure that you get them in the post office to stamp the date across the seal, you can even get your local peace commissioner to sign his name and date on your work, there is no Judge that would throw out evidence to prove that your work is your, you can even email it to yourself and what EileenG said early drafts never throw them out, as for posting it to yourself that is NOT full of BS.

    Now I did suggest another way of protecting your work, but I can't seem to find it, anyway.

    I wouldn't worry to much about copyrighting your work it read to me that your work is already protected, but I'm a bit puzzle, does your US publisher not provide copyright for you, good luck with your success long may it continue, and remember.

    Never press that delete button, creative writing does not like it when it's control by other thoughts, remind me of my old headmaster, he was great, but he never had a sense of humour, at least that's what I thought.

    But I did see him smile one time, after he clip me around the ear.

    Damn it, I thinks I just been clip again. :D


Advertisement