I want to copyright, but I don't know how and I think I'm too young!?

Question

OK, so my friend and I are writing a book, and we think it's really good, maybe even enough to publish when we're done and have finished editing. A lot of other people think so, too. Well, we've posted it on a website to get constructive criticism and such from people and it's turned out to be really helpgul and we've gotten a lot of great feedback. But I realized that couldn't someone copy and paste it? I though maybe we could copyright it, but we're both underage and I think it costs money. Does it? I really think we could go somewhere with this, and I don't want it to get stolen. Am I just being paranoid?

Answer 1

A cheap means of quick copy right is to take the total drafts you have and mail them to yourself in the mail. Do not open the mailing unless you were to go to court to fight an infringement. By mailing it to yourself you show a time stamp for date and time.

Web sites do a similar function in showing a publication date and time in the coding used to post the item on a site.

Make certain you write copyright (c) and your name. The best way though is to contact the US copyright office in Washington DC. This is the most legit and legally binding way to ensure you are protected.

Answer 2

Yes, someone can cut and paste it. It happens all the time. However, the moment you wrote it you owned it legally. There is no need for a copyright. It is considered amateur in the business to copyright your work. If you publish, your publisher does that. If someone does cut and paste what you put online, you can sue but it will be costly and time consuming. You will probably win, but understand that concepts and ideas cannot be copyrighted and if they change the wording at all, it becomes a whole new story.

Go to the United States Copyright Office website. There is a lot of info there.

In the future, you would be better off to find a mentor like a teacher to give you crits and advice. Posting on the web is like putting a buffet on your front yard. Anyone who wants to can help themselves to a chicken wing.

Moral of the story - dont put anything online you dont want stolen. Trust me - it has happened to me and I just had to let a great story go. Wasnt worth the time or money to fight it. C.

PS - the person above me is right. I have a lot of things I wrote a long time ago when I was a teenager. I thought they were the next War and Peace then. Now I read them and ask myself what kind of drugs was I on at the time. Nobody writes a winner the first time. Consider your first book (or first couple) to be practicing for the real deal.

Also - Barnes and Noble University has free online creative writing classes. All you have to do is register. Try taking some. C.

Answer 3

Go to the Copyright Office, through the link below. Yes, it costs money. The last time I checked the flat fee was $35. But there's no age minimum to receive a copyright; the work needs to be in hard copy form so it can go into the records, and they need the fee. Those are the only hard and fast requirements. As long as the work is yours, you can copyright it.

Sometimes you'll hear about something called a "poor man's copyright," which is when you mail a copy of your manuscript to yourself with the stamp over the flap, so that the dated postmark bears witness of the latest possible date the draft could have been written. In this process you send the manuscript to yourself and then store the letter, unopened, in case you need to defend your claim to your work. But in court such a tactic has no legal standing. If you need to copyright your work, you need to file it with the Copyright Office, which is a division of the Library of Congress, and is the only organization that can offer you a legally defensible copyright registration.

No, you're not being paranoid. I don't put works in progress on the Internet for that very reason. But at the same time, it's reasonably unlikely you're going to see your work stolen. Besides that, if you're going to keep putting your work up online, you'll need to copyright each individual draft, and that can get expensive.

Instead of seeking help online, I recommend looking for (or starting!) a peer critique group in your area. Other writers can help you polish your work and get it up to publishing standards. And other writers have a sense of honor; they won't steal your work if you show it to them. Ask at the public library or check community bulletin boards to see if you can find any sort of peer critique group.

Answer 4

Any creative work in a fixed form is automatically copyrighted in the US (and most other countries in the world) when it is created without any form of registration being required. It has been this way since the 1970s.

So your book is already copyrighted.

Registering your copyright with the US Copyright Office is easy but it is not necessary to copyright your work. It is however necessary if you want to sue someone and collect damages. If your copyright is not registered with the US Copyright Office the most you can expect from a lawsuit is an injunction.

The "Poor Man's Patent" that someone mentioned of mailing something to yourself has no legal bearing, namely because you could simply mail yourself an unsealed envelope or box and tape it up after it had gone through the postal system.

Answer 5

It sounds as if your story is a "work in progress". It is especially vulnerable at this time as copywright requires a FIXED form. If you develop the plot with the help of others, then technically they qualify to share in the copyright!!

To insure protection as you develop the story, make a fixed copy at every step, either a CDrom burn or hard copy printout.

That is not being paranoid, just prudent proceedure.

Age has nothing to do with copyright. However it will limit your ability to make contracts with a publisher without parental permission.

Answer 6

My young creative artist please I mean please stop showing your story to the world at this time. If you have the times and dates that you downloaded your story on the computer make a copy for yourself in fact make a copy for you and your friend who both wrote it and make an entire copy of the original and send both copys in a large manilla envelope to your address and your friends address send each one registered certified mail that way you have someone sign for it when it is delivered to both your households while you guys are at school. Once you receive each delivered copy of the story it will have the stamp and the date of when the post office delivered it and the date time and signature of the day you received it from whoeven signed for it. Do not open the envelope I repeat DO NOT OPEN THE ENVELOPES THIS IS CALLED THE POOR MANS COPYRIGHT THAT HAS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS UNITED STATES POST OFFICE PROOF OF RECEIVING YOUR DOCUMENT AND SENDING YOUR DOCUMENT IT HAS TIMES AND DATES TO PROVE IN COURT THAT WHOEVER TRIES TO STILL YOUR IDEA HAS TO PROVE IT WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN THE ONE THAT HAS THE OLDEST DATE WINS. AND THAT WOULD BE YOU. GOOD LUCK AND NEXT TIME KEEP YOUR SECRETS TO YOURSELF. I FORGOT ONE MORE THING HAVE YOUR FOLKS OPEN UP A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX AT THE BANK OR IT THEY HAVE A SAFE PUT IT AWAY AND DO NOT OPEN IT BY ANYMEANS. GOOD LUCK AND WHEN ITS PUBLISHED SEND ME A COPY. [e-mail]

Answer 7

Sorry, hun, but before anyone more unfriendly than me gets to this question... You had better ask a professional if what you've written is any good. Apart from very, VERY few talents, people your age normally don't produce stuff of much literary worth. Plus, if you don't want someone to steal your ideas, don't put them on the internet. As simple as that.

Answer 8

You have to register your book in order to copyright it. You can find out more at this website: http://www.copyright.gov/register/. Good luck with your book!