Is my work protected if shown online (fiction)?

[mattjbak]

I have been writing short stories for a while now, but it would be great to get more opinions of them... If I was to post something here, or in another community, how protected is my work? I'm very serious about wanting to go into this as a career and identify strongly with what I write, so this is very important to me. Also, my forum talk/posts sound horrible because I write down as quickly as possible, so no comments about my writing style as you see it when I post!

 

[Beev]

Aren't things automatically copyrighted to you when you create them? That isn't to say someone won't steal them, but I believe you are the legal owner because you wrote the words.

 

[mattjbak]

That's what I thought, but it's sketchy, I know that a few sites where people can submit things for peer review actually in the fine print say that they take ownership of the original material! That has me scared...

 

[oynaz]

Originally posted by: mattjbak
That's what I thought, but it's sketchy, I know that a few sites where people can submit things for peer review actually in the fine print say that they take ownership of the original material! That has me scared...

That is definitely not legal i EU, but American copyright laws are quite different. Isn't there an organisation for writers like there is for composers? You should ask them.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

One simple thing to do is print the story and mail it to yourself, it'll be dated by the post office. I'm not sure how good this method actually is, but I always hear people mention it with this topic. Maybe someone else here can comment on this thought?

 

[Braznor]

I have posted two of my stories on Anandtech, I really don't care, I just want people's opinion about how good they were.

 

[pontifex]

if you hope to make a career out of this, why are you giving your work away for free by posting it online?

who will go buy the book when they can read it for free online?

 

[Braznor]

Originally posted by: pontifex
if you hope to make a career out of this, why are you giving your work away for free by posting it online?

who will go buy the book when they can read it for free online?

The way I see it, I consider it just practice for improving my skills and I would get to evaluate my skills from a choosy bunch.

Did you read my second story?

Text

 

[smack Down]

A lot of sites claim copy right of any work posted. I would recommend using your own hosting company and just posting links.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

host it somewhere your self, you can have the story put into a flash animation so it can't be copy/pasted into anything else.