Does anyone know

[PrinceMyshkin]

1) Whether posting a poem or story here automatically copyrights it? and

2) Whether magazines that publish fiction or poetry would accept something that had been posted here or on some other website?

[Wilde woman]

I did a bit of posting my original writing on forums back in the day and, as far as I know, if you want to publish something you shouldn't post it online. Posting does not copyright your work, but it does make it public...I believe this makes copyrighting it more difficult.

I was always urged to either not post on forums, or to change my material enough that it would be unrecognizable to the stuff I'd already posted. However, I'm no expert, laws may have changed since then (about 6-7 years ago), so you should check.

Not sure about #2 at all.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thanks. Will continue checking. Does adding the copyright symbol at the end of your post take care of the copyright?

[JBI]

It's only copyrighted if viewing the site is passworded, which this one is not.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It's only copyrighted if viewing the site is passworded, which this one is not.

Thanks.

[Logos]

1) Yes it is copyrighted. If it is *your* intellectual property, you own it. Period. Adding your nickname/real name and © /date symbol is good too :)

2) Many online *and/or* print publications, whether they pay you for your content or not, will [usually] not want to use material that is already published elsewhere, online or in print. But that is the fine print you need to clarify with them.

[PrinceMyshkin]

1) Yes it is copyrighted. If it is *your* intellectual property, you own it. Period. Adding your nickname/real name and © /date symbol is good too :)

2) Many online *and/or* print publications, whether they pay you for your content or not, will [usually] not want to use material that is already published elsewhere, online or in print. But that is the fine print you need to clarify with them.

Many thanks.

Jerry Newman © 09Feb13
There. As you can see, I've protected my response as well!

[Silas Thorne]

So, in order to publish work that you've already put online , you would probably need to delete the presence of the online story or poem ? That would probably make it okay, right?

[Pecksie]

It is one thing to be the owner of one's work (which comes just by having written it yourself) and another thing to have registered it with the intellectual property agency or department of whichever country you're in. This registration (which in some legal systems follows the publication of 'banns' or similar publicity, to ensure that any claimant to your work gets a chance to show up) makes your ownership 'official' --- and helps you prove and defend it. I wouldn't assume that just because you published your work online, the ownership won't be contested --- full protection comes with registration only. Online publication may have precisely the opposite effect, making your work more easily available to plagiarizers and the like.

On the other hand, most magazines request submissions to be of 'previously unpublished' work, so publishing it online would probably disqualify it from consideration.

[Silas Thorne]

I've just discovered that some poetry publishers here in NZ consider work that has been workshopped online or that exists in a personal Blog to be unpublished.

[~Sophia~]

I sometimes workshop poems at a another site that is specifically for doing so. Many of the poets have submitted some of their workshopped poems to and been published in on-line journals and in print. I think each specific on-line journal and publication have their own rules. The best thing to do is check with the ones you hope to publish to.

Edit: And also, placing your poem on-line anywhere dates it in case of a future dispute. Copyright is very expensive to prove and the earliest date from a computer program/site often settles the claim.

[Niamh]

1) Whether posting a poem or story here automatically copyrights it? and

2) Whether magazines that publish fiction or poetry would accept something that had been posted here or on some other website?
I've been mulling over that one for a while.

1) Yes it is copyrighted. If it is *your* intellectual property, you own it. Period. Adding your nickname/real name and © /date symbol is good too :)

2) Many online *and/or* print publications, whether they pay you for your content or not, will [usually] not want to use material that is already published elsewhere, online or in print. But that is the fine print you need to clarify with them.

Yeah thanks for that Logos!
Now, dumb Q. How do you get the copyright symbol on screen?

[kiz_paws]

I will respond to Niamh's question, since Jer's has been clarified.

Niamh, what I do is copy and past it from a Notepad save I made. I don't know how on the keyboard to actually produce that symbol, so I copied the symbol once and pasted it to a Notepad document. Now, whenever I need it, I retrieve it to copy and paste once again. Hope this helps (but maybe someone else has an easier way...) ;)

[Niamh]

Suppose that could work!

[Logos]

Niamh, it's at the bottom of every LitNet page, you can copy and paste it from there if you're wanting to use it here, or press

ALT 0169

use *keypad* #'s only, not # keys at top of keyboard.

[kiz_paws]

Niamh, it's at the bottom of every LitNet page, you can copy and paste it from there if you're wanting to use it here, or press

ALT 0169

use *keypad* #'s only, not # keys at top of keyboard.Nifty! Thanks muchly, Logos. :p