Once again, the habitués of Speculations: The Rumor Mill come through with a topic of interest to all writers anywhere: copyright. My thanks to all of these wise and generous folks for letting me stash this discussion on my web page!
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Message #621 left by Rigel Chiokis on Feb 10, 2000 at 11:19
I really wish
that writers would state their copyright on their manuscripts!
Instead of writing "My Title" by John/Jane Doe, try writing
"My Title" (c) 2000 John/Jane Doe.
Your copyright is your protection. Flaunt it, wave it around like a banner,
wear it as a badge of honour, but most importantly, state it in your
manuscript. It makes it so much easier to write up contracts for you. And since
SpaceWays Weekly publishes your copyright as part of your by-line, it makes my
job easier.
Message #622 left by Dave Kuzminski on Feb 10, 2000 at 11:59
Rigel: I can
see how that might help you, but wouldn't a universal copyright claim posted
after the story in the email do just as well?
For my part, I can see how it might be even easier to just create a
template with the usual information and then just do a cut and paste of your
comments and the story into the template before mailing out to customers. After
all, your comments are also copyrighted, so it might be best if a single
copyright notice informed the public concerning your comments and the story.
Also, it adds to the general confusion that writers deal with because they'd
have to remember to add a copyright in for your submissions and make sure they
leave those out for submissions to other publishers.
Message #623 left by Mark Rapacioli on Feb 10, 2000 at 12:25
FYI, Rigel, I've read and heard elsewhere that placing a copyright on a manuscript is the "mark of an amateur." Just my 1.38466 cents (US, as of 2/9/00, 12 noon, Ottowa time).
Message #624 left by Mark Rapacioli on Feb 10, 2000 at 12:27
Leave it to me to spell "Ottawa" wrong.
Message #625 left by John Savage on Feb 10, 2000 at 14:47
Rigel, marking the copyright date on the manuscript is indeed no longer necessary. Under the Berne Convention, the "date" of copyright is merely a convenience for the cataloging authorities, because copyright is actually measured from publication, not creation (except in rare instances that, as a publisher, you will never encounter).
Message #626 left by Rigel Chiokis on Feb 10, 2000 at 19:44
So John, what you're telling me is, if John Doe sells me a story, Jane Doe can swipe it and claim copyright provided she can get it published before I publish it?
Message #628 left by Mary on Feb 10, 2000 at 20:37
Rigel, I have heard putting the copyright on the manuscript described as the Dreaded Mark of an Amateur.
Message #629 left by Alan on Feb 10, 2000 at 20:41
Rigel, writers
should follow your guidelines. However every writing site and book that I have
read has stated that a writer should not put a copyright notice on the
submitted ms.
Somehow, I remember this thread being thrashed through before. Terry, if
you're listening how about digging it out, and with Kent's blessing,
permanently post it on your site as a reference.
Message #630 left by Rigel Chiokis on Feb 10, 2000 at 22:21
Okay, I
apologise for being cranky on the copyright thing. Stuff is piling up on me,
I'm having employment problems and it's always the little things that set you
off, right? :)
I guess I slept through the change of attitude regarding copyright notices.
Personally, I feel it's a dangerous step for writers to allow publishers to
tell them to not state copyright. Kind of like, "sign this contract and
don't worry about the clause about giving us all of your rights". Maybe
I'm just being old fashioned and outdated.
Rigel
Message #631 left by John Savage on Feb 10, 2000 at 23:13
No, no, no. I
see we're talking about two completely different things here:
(1) The copyright notice never goes on the manuscript. That is the
Mark of the Amateur—the thing that the author should never do.
(2) The copyright notice always goes on the published version, dated
with the publication for firsts and with the original publication for reprints.
(Again, there are a few technical exceptions, but they don't apply here.) That
is what the author insists that the publisher do.
No, Jane can't "steal" the copyright in the scenario you outlined
in message 626. Copyright only transfers with a signed writing by the author.
Jane might be stealing first rights, but that's another issue entirely—one that
is (technically) completely outside of copyright law since the general adoption
of the Berne Convention. I will resist the impulse for a stultifyingly boring
lecture on the history of copyright in the latter half of the twentieth
century.
Enforcement is always, of course, a different matter—but it's extremely
fact-intensive, and no competent intellectual property attorney will try and
tell you more than "retain an intellectual property attorney."
Message #632 left by Steve Algieri on Feb 11, 2000 at 0:38
I'm not sure
that stating copyright on a manuscript is the mark of an amateur (several pros
do it routinely), but it is not required. Editors/publishers just do not steal
stories from writers except in very rare instances. What it does do, however,
is possibly date your manuscript. I once got an original, unpublished story
with a copyright in the early eighties. Been circulating a while?
Steve
Message #633 left by Terry on Feb 11, 2000 at 8:51
Got it, Alan.
Good idea! 'Zat OK with everybody? That I reproduce this copyright conversation
(whenever it's finished) over to my Light Bulb Alley on my web site, as a
permanent reference? (Reply here or privately, as you wish.)
So clarify, John, if you please: If I write a story today, technically it's
copyrighted when I set my pen down at the end, and its copyright date is 2000.
However, if it doesn't actually get published until next year, *when* it
does, its copyright will be 2001? And from then on, I'll need to consider it
copyright 2001? (I don't know why I ask you attorneys anything; I always think
it'll take a ten-word answer and find out it's more like 10 chapters.
<whining> Why can't anything be simple? </whining>
Message #634 left by John Savage on Feb 11, 2000 at 10:05
Terry, the year
matters. These examples are from US copyright law; the same principles apply
worldwide, but with different dates.
Prior to January 1, 1921, copyright had to be accurate, because the
copyright was for two 28-year terms (with a renewal in the middle). While
technically under the 1909 Act one could claim copyright in an unpublished work
that had not yet been registered, failure to register within three months of
publication automatically voided the copyright. Ironically, the 1909 Act did
not define "published."
As of January 1, 1977, so long as the work had not lapsed into the
public domain on that date, copyright protection automatically became
"life plus 50", later extended to "life plus 70", in the
US. Publication date now matter just as a clock for establishing certain kinds
of damages. One can only get statutory damages (the only worthwhile kind for
short works and poetry) if the copyright is registered within three months of
publication—but even failure to do that isn't necessarily a problem, since
there are still actual damages and equitable remedies available. As usual,
there are several technical odd cases that don't concern us here.
Frankly, these days, the "copyright date" is as much a marketing
tool as anything else, to make books seem "more current" on the
shelves. If you look in the brand-new books on the shelves after Thanksgiving,
you'll see that an increasing proportion of them have the next year listed as
the copyright date; same for magazines.
Message #635 left by S.N.Arly on Feb 11, 2000 at 12:41
After my mass
media law class in my journie days, I slapped my copyright notice on all my
stuff, since proper notice is required in order to actually receive any
protection (I was also taught that it was from creation not publication under
existing US law).
I've been told that this is an amateurish thing to do since no respectable
editor would steal my stuff and the notice is an insult to them. I've also
received other people's stories instead of my own.
If it bothers the ed to have it there, that's his/her problem, not mine. If
the ed wants to read into the date that it's been circulating a while, that is
of course his/her perrogative, but it's also not necessarily the case. I've had
several stories that waited years before I ever actually sent them anywhere.
Here are a couple of my favorite sites on the subject:
Cornell Law DB
The Copyright Website
Message #636 left by John Savage on Feb 11, 2000 at 16:09
BZZZZZT! Thank
you for playing!
That's one of the common myths about copyright that is continuously
perpetuated by certain ignorant sleazebags in the journalism community. Neither
registration nor marking is required to afford a work copyright protection.
Everything else is merely a matter of posturing, broadbrush rules that are
supposed to make admitting evidence easier (and do nothing of the kind), and so
on.
The only time that marking matters is as a defense to willful
infringement—and then it just avoids punitive damages, not liability. That's
because the default rule is "it's copyrighted"—which is the opposite
of the default rules for trademarks, trade dress, and patents.
Message #637 left by Gregory Koster on Feb 11, 2000 at 18:51
Kent has also
put some thoughts on why it is bad for neophytes to put a copyright date on a
piece they are submitting in his article on slushpile reading which is on his
home page. It made enough sense to me that I immediately stopped doing so on my
submissions.
Best regards,
Gregory Koster
Message #639 left by Rigel Chiokis on Feb 13, 2000 at 9:38
Back in the
dark ages, when I was still writing, I used to insure my copyright by mailing a
copy of the ms to myself and then never opening it. The cancellation date on
the stamp was my proof.
And I was aware that copyright exists without marking or registration.
Which reminds me that I have seen some *ahem* businesses which charged fees to
register your copyright.
Whether or not you put your copyright on your stuff is your business. But,
when sending stuff to SpaceWays Weekly I like to see the copyright because that
copyright gets published in the issue the story appears in. If you don't know
what I mean, go to our website and request the free sample.
"Your Story Tile"
(c) 2000 Jane Doe
That's how it appears. No, I don't use the copyright symbol because I'm
working in ASCII. I frequently get contracts back with the blank line for
copyright still blank. Once or twice, I've had authors give the month and date,
but no year.
Everyone should write to their national library, whatever it is called in
your country, and request a copy of the copyright law. I know that the National
Library of Canada sends it out free of charge, I don't know about other
countries.
Which reminds me: I need to get a new copy because they've changed the law
so that the music artists can get a royalty every time someone plays one of their
songs.
Message #645 left by Joe Shosty on Mar 8, 2000 at 1:57
Hell, I'm a writer and I wish writers would do
certain things.
1). Stop treating this like an industry where we all have to compete. Ugh!
That's what we do 9 to 5 when we're working our day jobs to feed the monkey.
2). Share more. My writers' group looks more like a high stakes poker game
sometimes. "What'chu got, boy?" "I got a pair o' short stories
and a haiku, all copyrighted. You even so much as use the word 'homonucleus' in
a story, and I'll sue yer ass."
3). Don't form cliques. I see that more often than we're all likely to
admit. Friendships are okay, but I've seen certain "types" gathering
at conferences and such who won't let anyone in. Nothing worse than being in a
room with a bunch of "real" writers who look down on me because I
write that "silly spaceship crap." Closer to home there's the sf
purists wanting to be separate from the fantasists. Just two big cliques
wrestling over semantics when we should be banding together to spread ideas.
Besides, isn't that an antiquated notion since so many of us write sf, fantasy,
and horror these days?
{This discussion is ongoing (as of March 10, 2000)
so if you want more, go to the Rumor
Mill and check it out!}
Let’s go back to the Science Fiction page and see what else there is to browse.
Or, you could go over to the rock’n’roll side for some cool links.
On the third hand, you could go back to the Home Page and start all over again.