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Copyright Law and protecting your work

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Matriarch
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I was asked a question earlier about Copyright Law.

This site should prove helpful to those interested in learning more about Copyright issues, and protecting your work: https://www.writersservices.com/copyright-law

In terms of a standard disclaimer to put on your work, please feel free to adapt these as you see fit. There is a section where you can put your Copyright notice in your profile (click the "settings" link, top of site).

Copyright ©2009 Author Name. All Rights Reserved.

A simple cover all statement. This is the most commonly used statement, and perhaps the clearest, and covers most eventualities. It simply means that you withhold all rights to the maximum extent allowable under law.

©2009 Author Name. This story may not be reproduced in any manner, without the express permission of the author. All such requests should be emailed to *email address*.

Of course you can also allow anyone to copy and redistribute your work too should you wish. I strongly suggest however putting in a clause, that the original author should be cited, and a link included to their work.

On a lighter note, this is my personal favourite copyright notice, from an author on this very site:

"All stories are property of the writer unless I give you permission to republish them. All those not taking this warning to heart will be hunted and eaten."
Active Ink Slinger
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Quote by nicola
"All those not taking this warning to heart will be hunted and eaten."



I had the guy that pinched my story served cold with a fine chianti. I used your recipe if you remember. Tasted delicious.
Matriarch
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Quote by steffanie
I had the guy that pinched my story served cold with a fine chianti. I used your recipe if you remember. Tasted delicious.




For anybody wondering how to check, http://www.copyscape.com is a good free place to check if your work has been plagiarised too. Please take it up with other site owners though if you do come across cases where your work has been reproduced without your permission.
Lurker
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Copyscape is a useful link. Thanks.
Lurker
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Quote by steffanie
Quote by nicola
All those not taking this warning to heart will be hunted and eaten."



I had the guy that pinched my story served cold with a fine chianti. I used your recipe if you remember. Tasted delicious.


If any man or woman copied my stories, I would make them my personal slave to drop down between my thighs when ever I needed them
Matriarch
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Quote by HoneyBee000
If any man or woman copied my stories, I would make them my personal slave to drop down between my thighs when ever I needed them


I'm sure they'd enjoy that punishment
Active Ink Slinger
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Quote by nicola
Of course you can also allow anyone to copy and redistribute your work too should you wish. I strongly suggest however putting in a clause, that the original author should be cited, and a link included to their work.


If you wish to take this route then you should take a look at the Creative Commons licenses. They work well for me. I don't think I'll ever make any money off of what I write. So releasing what I write under a copyleft license allows me to keep some rights while granting readers the ability to use in nearly any setting they wish. My copyright notice points to a Creative Commons license.
Thousands of user submitted stories removed from the site. You are nothing without your users or their freely submitted stories.
Purveyor of Poetry & Porn
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Quote by HoneyBee000
Quote by steffanie
Quote by nicola
All those not taking this warning to heart will be hunted and eaten."



I had the guy that pinched my story served cold with a fine chianti. I used your recipe if you remember. Tasted delicious.


If any man or woman copied my stories, I would make them my personal slave to drop down between my thighs when ever I needed them


Miss Bee...just thought I'd mention, I took the liberty of having your stories translated into 43 languages and posting them on no less than 168 sites throughout the world wide web...
Just thought I'd mention it...

Btw, will you be wearing the bee outfit???

You know you want it, you know you need it bad...get it now on Amazon.com...
Lush Erotica, an Anthology of Award Winning Sex Stories
Lurker
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I was always under the impression only an amateur would put a copy right on their work as the person who originally wrote the piece has copy right by law. At least that is the information I got from publishing houses, agents and editors. Might be different for the internet.
Matriarch
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Quote by cowgirlbrumby
I was always under the impression only an amateur would put a copy right on their work as the person who originally wrote the piece has copy right by law. At least that is the information I got from publishing houses, agents and editors. Might be different for the internet.


It's always better to be safe than sorry where copyright is concerned.
Active Ink Slinger
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Can some one tell me how to get a copyright for my story and what do,s it cost. I live in France. Thank you
Lurker
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Question...
we have 4 stories published... we did not add our copyright notice to them....
what will happen if we EDIT those Stories to add the copyright info to them...
or is there another way we can add it to those stories without editing and resubmitting..

Thanks for the helpjavascript:insertsmiley(' ','/forum/images/emoticons/eusa_boohoo.gif')
Matriarch
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@erotichugs. They are your stories, you need not do anything necessarily.

The fact that you've written them in the first place (and most likely have proof of that) makes them your intellectual property. If you wish, simply add your copyright information to them also.

I'd encourage you to do that on all work you submit, anywhere on the web.
Purveyor of Poetry & Porn
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And someone in a Facebook group pointed out earlier that you don't have to figure out which forms to use these days, or download anything...there is a link to the eCO (Electronic Copyright Office)

U.S. Copyright Office - Online Services (eCO: Electronic Copyright Office)
http://www.copyright.gov/eco/

See, who says you can't learn anything on Facebook?

You know you want it, you know you need it bad...get it now on Amazon.com...
Lush Erotica, an Anthology of Award Winning Sex Stories
Active Ink Slinger
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On another short story site when copyright was being discussed one author (MathGirl for those who remember her) came up with: "I just wish someone liked one of my stories enough to steal it. I would be so flattered."
News of ALL my novels (and where to get free copies) via charmbrights@yahoo.co.uk
Active Ink Slinger
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Apparently some people simply clone the entire site.
http://9erotica.com/
"A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere." - Groucho Marx
Active Ink Slinger
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Nicola I found nine of my old stories off this site on another site called 9erotica.com. Any advice on how to proceed on getting them removed?
Matriarch
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Quote by Broken_Cowgirl
Nicola I found nine of my old stories off this site on another site called 9erotica.com. Any advice on how to proceed on getting them removed?


Hi Broken Cowgirl,

You should have a read of this thread: http://www.lushstories.com/forum/yaf_postst21993_Stolen-Work.aspx

He wasn't so "smart" when originally registering his real details...

Maybe write to him, or go and see him, ask him why he thinks it's fine stealing other people's work?

He's changed the whois information in the above linked thread, to a fake address in the USA. Which means, you can write to his registrar, tell them he's using fake information in his WHOIS details now.

That site has been abandoned from the looks of things.

Him, and people like him, basically steal stories by scraping all the big erotica sites, and then put them all on their sites / APPS etc, piggybacking off everyone's hard work.

There's nothing much you can do to stop them, they do it programmatically. We do what we can to stop the copy and pasters, but the professional thieves, it's next to impossible.

I'm not wasting my time chasing shadows. Registrars, hosting companies, the thieves, tend to totally ignore complaints. The good thing is, it doesn't matter they have the content, they have no traffic, search engines know the site has ripped off others, and they'll be empty vessels.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about them.

Nicola
Testing The Waters.
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9Erotica actually will take down the stories posted without permission if you can manage to find the contact links on the site. Posting comments on your work pointing to where it actually can be found will do the trick as well -- eventually.

Compared to the average story-stealing site, which is typically based in China or a former Russian satellite state and is nothing more than a vehicle for ads ( and sometimes malware ) it's among the least offensive.

One thing everyone needs to remember and not delude themselves about is copyright protection in the U.S. While you do have a copyright as soon as you produce the work, you can't bring anything to court unless you have a formal copyright filed with the U.S. copyright office. In other words, you have zero real legal standing without that formal copyright.

Even with a formal copyright, it's nearly impossible to persuade a court you've been damaged when the theft happened from a site where you posted the work for free.

That being said, most people don't understand that, and asserting your copyright with proof of where it was originally posted with your permission and a formal DMCA takedown is sufficient to encourage some interested parties to take action, provided you can find them and they aren't accomplices in shady activity.

Moral Suasion is also a factor. Amazon has been known to wipe out collections of stolen work when reported. They have no legal obligation to do so, and I'm sure they actually understand that, but they still do it when provided sufficient information to demonstrate the theft and a formal DMCA notification.

Don't think you're getting back any of the profits the thief made off your work, though.

The hard and simple truth is that once you release something into the wild of the internet, you lose control over it. The odds are better than not that someone is going to steal it in some way, shape, or form. You'll spend all your time chasing those thieves down their rabbit holes and never get any writing done if you stress too much over it.

Undoubtedly, people are going to argue with this *laugh* Someone always does. I did myself before taking the time to research, and being guided in that research by a long-published mainstream author and professional editor.

If you want to be depressed, take a reasonably unique line from the first few paragraphs of something you've written and put it in a Google search in quotes, so the search is looking for that exact series of words.

Just don't click any of the links that it finds unless you have iron-clad malware protection.
Active Ink Slinger
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Thanks for the response Nicola, I appreciate the explanation. I don't understand why people would do that, but if you say not to worry, I won't. Thanks again! I love Lush!
Quote by nicola


Hi Broken Cowgirl,

You should have a read of this thread: http://www.lushstories.com/forum/yaf_postst21993_Stolen-Work.aspx

He wasn't so "smart" when originally registering his real details...

Maybe write to him, or go and see him, ask him why he thinks it's fine stealing other people's work?

He's changed the whois information in the above linked thread, to a fake address in the USA. Which means, you can write to his registrar, tell them he's using fake information in his WHOIS details now.

That site has been abandoned from the looks of things.

Him, and people like him, basically steal stories by scraping all the big erotica sites, and then put them all on their sites / APPS etc, piggybacking off everyone's hard work.

There's nothing much you can do to stop them, they do it programmatically. We do what we can to stop the copy and pasters, but the professional thieves, it's next to impossible.

I'm not wasting my time chasing shadows. Registrars, hosting companies, the thieves, tend to totally ignore complaints. The good thing is, it doesn't matter they have the content, they have no traffic, search engines know the site has ripped off others, and they'll be empty vessels.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about them.

Nicola
Lurker
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What's the ruling on if someome takes a poem I wrote and molds it to fit their needs? I wrote this poem called Slice of Cake. I wrote it to cheer up an xbox friend that was getting down. A few years later someone I know heard a song on the radio that made them stongly think of my poem. So I started listening to the station it was heard on and sure enough without telling me what poem or the name of the song imitating it I knew as soon as I heard it. I'm talking about Casting Crown's "Just Another Birthday". If you were to read "Slice of Cake" and listen to the song you would know what I mean. There is nothing I can do avout it. It's just a slap in the face.
Rookie Scribe
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Hi guys,
I've yet to post any erotica on Lush but I intend to. I'm guessing many people use pseudonyms on here. How do you copyright your online work if you're using a pseudonym? I'm a published writer but I do not want to use my real name on Lush for obvious reasons: I'm trying my hand at something new, I don't want to self-censor and I probably would under my real name, and -- well -- I don't know if I'm any good at this yet.

That being said, I want to protect my work. Does it help to post things across multiple platforms (Medium or a personal blog under your pseudonym) in order to protect it? Or does that simply make it far more likely that your work will be stolen?

Anyway, I don't have a lot of experience with self-publishing online so I'm not sure how one usually protects material.
Rookie Scribe
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Does it cost anything to copyright ones stories?
Testing The Waters.
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Quote by AlexUndercover
Does it cost anything to copyright ones stories?


Yes, a formal copyright has costs. You can look it up on the U.S. copyright site, which is linked above, I believe. You can alleviate some of the costs by collecting several of your stories as "anthologies" and registering them all together. It protects every work in the collection for the price of a single registration.

That said, unless you're going to sell your work as Ebooks, it's not really worth getting a formal registration through the copyright office. A formal registration is only necessary to seek damages, and if you're posting on a free site, you've already given it away for free, so there's no monetary damages.

The legal costs and shady, fly-by-night nature of most thieves means that even with a formal copyright and established profit through and Ebook, it's still not really worth the effort. Publishing houses with lawyers on retainer are the only ones who can really take advantage of formal copyright protection.
Testing The Waters.
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As long as I'm here, I'll bring up a trick you can use against Amazon thieves who take work from sites like this and publish it for pay on Amazon.

Amazon has a policy where the work can't be available elsewhere cheaper than it is on Amazon. Free qualifies. Use the reporting functions to link to your original work. I know several people who have had near instant satisfaction getting their stolen work removed from Amazon with that simple trick.
Rookie Scribe
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Hello,

I was wondering about injecting a copyright notice into the hearts of the stories. Would Lush Stores be fine with this? It may detract from the user experience but would make it more difficult for bots to scrape the story, or at least they'd scrape the copyright with it.
Rookie Scribe
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I am new here, and have mixed feelings about posting work in public, but I get that IP rights are a tricky, sometimes precarious thing. Someone doesn't have to steal your words, for instance, but a completely and new unique concept molded to someone else's writing I would assume is fair game. I am writing a huge, long succubus series, literally thousands of pages of short stories and starts to novels (often disjointed and unfinished), in various stages of completion. I actually searched high and low for someone else who has gone the route I am trying to go, since as the saying goes, "There is nothing new under the sun..." I assumed other people had stumbled onto this, but nothing. Good, bad, mediocre, I have come to realize that my entire concept and paradigm is actually unique, and if I am not careful, someone could steal the concept without actually being guilty of plagiarism, since I have never even tried submitting my work for traditional publication. I am older, and not sure even how to go about that, or try to find an agent or publisher lol and someone with a much better work ethic than me could literally steal my entire world right out from under me.

I was thinking of self-publishing combined with posting on a site like this, as well as a possible fiction blog of some sort.

Any guidance would be much appreciated. Note that I was trying to start a thread, but apparently you can't do that here without a paid subscription. So...not sure what that's all about, but okay.

Louder Than Words
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Quote by SuccubusLover
Any guidance would be much appreciated. Note that I was trying to start a thread, but apparently you can't do that here without a paid subscription. So...not sure what that's all about, but okay.

There may be a good reason why an idea like yours has failed to find a publisher.

But in any case you can't copyright an idea so I should stop worrying.

I notice you live in America. Have a look through this list for a publisher of erotica:

https://www.publishersglobal.com/directory/united-states/publishers-in-united-states

You may well find that the main route to publication for erotica is self-publication. Or you could investigate the online only publishers. They will put your book on their website and take half the money on any sales.

Btw, you can have lots of fun with a paid subscription.

yes I said yes I will Yes