Copyrights...

me-skywalker

Does posting something onto Boards copyright it?

dawvee

If you're so desperate to prove that you created a particular work at a particular date, your best bet would probably be to have a solicitor certify the document. It's a relatively cheap service, usually for verifying copies of passports, etc., but I'm sure there are solicitors willing to seal, sign and date a manuscript for a few bob.

Also, unlike the postal route, the above is pretty much guaranteed to hold up in court.

WHU

I read this on another site:
"The poor man's copywrite has been wortless since 1909. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with copyright; it instead results from gross misunderstandings of now-outmoded evidence law. If an author keeps a system of records in the ordinary course of business, such as record copies of submissions and a corresponding submission log, that is just as good (if not better) for admitting in a court of law to prove priority in a "who wrote it first" dispute."

And

"The idea behind Poorman's Copyright is that you place your manuscript in an envelope and mail it to yourself; the sealed envelope and the postmark are then "proof" of your creation date.
It is also a myth; poorman's copyright will do nothing for you in terms of asserting your rights. You have copyright from the moment you create a text or other applicable work. Copyright is automatic. Registration of copyright is another matter. Poorman's Copyright never really worked; it wasn't intended to be used for copyright protection; instead, it an artifact of evidence law, not copyright law. "

Just thought I'd share

EileenG

In a battle over copyright, your best defence is your early drafts. If a case goes to court, the person who has the drafts which show the work in progress will win.

Amhran Nua

Just a word on international copyrights, Ireland is a signatory of the Berne Convention on copyright...

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886.

...

Under the Convention, copyrights for creative works are automatically in force upon their creation without being asserted or declared. An author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright in countries adhering to the Convention. As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all copyrights in the work and to any derivative works, unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them or until the copyright expires.

Foreign authors are given the same rights and privileges to copyrighted material as domestic authors in any country that signed the Convention.

On registering a copyright:

Protection is automatic

There is no system of registration for copyright protection in Ireland as copyright arises automatically on the creation of an original work. You do not need to publish your work, to put a copyright notice on it or do anything else to be covered by copyright - protection is free and automatic.

A work is protected automatically from the time it is first written down or recorded in some way, provided that it has resulted from the creator's skill and effort and is not simply copied from another work.

Depending on the circumstances, it may be difficult for an author to prove that he or she had created a work at a specific point in time. Proof of this fact might be needed in an action for infringement. An author can create such proof by sending a copy of the work to himself or herself by registered post, keeping the post office receipt and leaving the envelope unopened. Another way of creating this type of proof is to deposit the work with an organisation such as the Copyright Protection Agency, which, for a fee, will provide the necessary proof should the need arise.

So basically preponderance of evidence, really. Keeping incremental copies as the work develops sounds like a great idea.

north.

very useful information
thanks for sharing!

Huawei Gallagher

You could place a watermark in your work, such as using the letters of your name as the first letters of the words of a particular sentence. Then outdated legislation should tell others your legitimate enterprise origin.

PS There is a hidden watermark in the underlined sentence above, I think it would quite easily prove that someone copied my post .


© Leo Tolstoy;)

EileenG

Stanley Blade wrote: »

You could place a watermark in your work, such as using the letters of your name as the first letters of the words of a particular sentence. Then outdated legislation should tell others your legitimate enterprise origin.

PS There is a hidden watermark in the underlined sentence above, I think it would quite easily prove that someone copied my post .


© Leo Tolstoy;)

Come on! What court is going to trawl through your work looking for stuff like this? Keep your early drafts, that's all the proof you need.

Eoinp

Read over this thread while looking at responses to my Getting published thread above. It would be helpful to think of this discussion as two separate discussions COPYRIGHT and PIRACY.

COPYRIGHT
1) Copyright is conferred on created work. It does not actually protect that work as it is a concept. However, establishing that you are the copyright holder of your own work confers rights on you. Enforcing these rights enables you to take action to protect your copyrighted works.

2) The best practice is to keep notes and records of your work (especially submissions and early drafts including rejections etc.) as evidence of your efforts rather than proof of your copyright. Any such evidence will be compelling if the need arises to ever PROVE the copyright belongs to you.

3) If a conflict arises over copyright the balance of probability is that you will be a published author and your publisher will be as keen as you are to protect your copyrights because you have licensed them to exploit it.

4) Sometimes ideas and themes touched on (or forming the bulk of your work) may be "taken" by another unscrupulous author/publisher/film-maker. Proving that this violates your copyright is going to be hard unless it is blatant. Of course, it may well be that those creators had similar ideas to your own and were just luckier in finding an avenue to express them.

PIRACY
1) Piracy is when someone takes your content without permission and reuses it. There does not necessarily have to be a profit motive to the act

2) Best practice is to first approach the party in question and request that they either a) acknowledge or b) take down the content in question (depending on what it is you want them to do) or c) pay for the unauthorized use of the content.

3) If they fail to respond then it is time to get lawyers involved (if you are serious).

4) You always need to ask the question before getting into an enforcement situation, does this piracy help or hurt me? If it helps then maybe you don't NEED to do anything, if it hurts then take action. Remember that one illegal download does not equal one lost sale, but on the other hand a stream of freely available content may slow sales of your future content. Balance is a good thing.

clm

I sat in on a talk given by someone from the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency about this issue. They said that as there is no copyright registry in Ireland that Poor Man's Copyright is the way to go i.e. send it to yourself in a sealed envelope by registered post and when you receive it do NOT open it. The post office seal with the date acts as legal proof that it belongs to you.

I asked about emailing it to yourself or posting it to online boards. They said it would be a lot harder to prove ownership as computer data can be manipulated, dates can be changed etc... so an post is the way to go. And as Eoin said keep all records of letters regarding the works even if they're rejections you'd like to forget about!

Anyway if you're really worried the ICLA should be able to help you out, http://www.icla.ie/

tricky D

The E-Commerce Act 2000 provides a contract grade framework to prove the integrity, authenticity and non-repudiation of electronic transfers through the use of digital signatures/cryptography. So sending the material via an electronic method that uses digital signatures will stand up in court.