The Sad Reality of Writers’ Rights
Writers have rights but they also need money to enforce them. That’s the sad truth.
I’ve often heard writers yelling at the top of their voices, ‘But I’ve got rights! Legal rights!’
It’s true, there are laws that protect writers, on and off the internet, and aim to stop anyone stealing their work. But you can shout as much as you like, and trot out your rights, but it doesn’t always work. In effect, if your work is stolen, copied, or whatever else, you can only ask the perpetrator of the crime (and it is a crime), to stop.
Ask them, send them an official sounding ‘Cease and desist’ letter, and hope it works, but you can’t force them to comply.
So, what about the law? This varies according to which country you are in and you need to have a shed load of money to fight for your rights, even if the legislation is on your side.
It is now quite common for authors who write blogs, or online articles, to get ‘discovered’ and start publishing in the ‘real’ world. This sounds a great idea but the legal issues here are complex. There is a danger that once you get an offer from a mainstream publisher, you discover that the work they are interested in has not only been published on your blog, but copied to several others. This tends to pour cold water on the whole procedure. After all, which publisher want to spend money publishing stuff that is already freely available on the internet. Think security when you are publishing your work on line.
First of all, if you have a blog, or website it is difficult to keep track of your material and to make sure it isn’t being plagiarised by someone. The internet is so vast that you might never find out, although there are various sites that purport to detect plagiarism. Using a third party service to host your blog, or articles, is fraught with other problems. These sites, like Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad, Helium, Triond, Associated Content, have their own rules and their terms and conditions. You need to make sure what these are and make sure you agree before setting up your blog, or posting articles. If you think these sites will offer protection or fight your corner if your work is plagiarised, think again. They won’t and you are on your own with your problem.
Most of these sites are quite fair but there are those which claim the copyright of your work, refuse to allow you to remove it once it is published on their site, or simply don’t pay you what they promise. There is nothing you can do about this except spread the word, unless you have the money to fight it legally. There are countless tales of writers blithely writing and hoping to reap rewards at the end of the day, but finding that it all leads to nothing and they have wasted their time. If the rewards look too good to be true, then they probably are. You won’t get rich quick as a writer on the internet because there are just too many at it.
These sites can get away with it because they know that the vast majority of people can’t afford to fight them and they have covered themselves by inserting an obscure line in their ‘Term and Conditions’ which users accept.
The best you can hope for, if you are a competent writer, is that someone out there will notice you among the pile of dross and detritus that is internet writing and give you a chance. If you aren’t a natural writer, but you are looking for a ‘fast buck’ forget it because you will always be earning pennies for hours of work, you are never going to get that big break that all real writers hope for. There is one thing that the ‘get rich quick’ merchants don’t have to worry about though, and that’s plagiarism. Much of the work cobbled together by this group is so bad that not even plagiarists want to be associated with it.
If you have something that potentially has value posted on line, make sure that you take a hard copy, date it, and keep it safe. This is your proof in case of plagiarism. You may have a dated blog post, or an article online, but this prooves nothing. It is easy to change webpages, so, in law, it may not be enough to proove your case if the worst happens.
Always include a copyright statement on your websites and blogs because in some parts of the world, if you don’t expressly state that your work is copyrighted, anyone can copy it. Even where it isn’t legally required, it can deter potential plagiarists.
In short, there are laws in US, UK and most other countries which protect intellectual property but enforcing them on the internet has become a huge job. There is no sure fire way of preventing plagiarism, or forcing these thieves to remove stolen work from their sites, but that doesn’t mean authors shouldn’t try. Most site owners will remove plagiarised material when you complain but there are others who know that you can’t really do much about it.
The best way to battle this is to stay vigilant and watch out for work that you think has been stolen from other writers, or yourself. Notify the writers concerned and at least make a small impact on this growing trend that actually steals earnings from writers. Wherever you publish your writing make sure that you read the Terms and Conditions first.
Liked it
Click the icon to the left to subscribe to Writinghood with your favorite RSS reader.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Thank you for this information….I guess people out there are thiefs.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:05 am
True and sad facts about writers. You hit it right, straight from the heart of the real writers…not a writer who just want to gain bucks per views…
March 16th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Thanks for this considered and intelligent piece. As someone who has had their work nicked many times – and just about given up doing anything about it out of sheer exasperation – this resonated for me!
March 16th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Great advice, Louie!
March 16th, 2009 at 8:47 am
I agree with you Louie. I started writing for writing campus, but gave up because they simply fool the writers with promises of prize money for contests and never pay. I wanted to close my a/c, but the site doesn’t allow it. There are other complaints about that site, and it is disgusting how people want to get rich at the cost of others.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Well said. I’m sick of chasing down my articles and writing to the culprits to remove my material.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Good advise. It is sad but true.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Excellent! Great advices and very helpful article. Thanx 4 sharing
March 16th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Thanks for your great advice.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Great and very helpful advice.
March 16th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Excellent advice, thanks for sharing.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Such a common fear in the writing world. Thanks so much for the lesson in reality and how best to circumvent such thievery.
March 16th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Direct and to the point Louie. Nice.
RJ
March 16th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Another fine article Louie, sadly no doubt I will read it elsewhere with another name attatched!! I recently found a piece of work of RJ Evans, it was a complete word for word article, the owner of the site was contacted and it was removed, so I think we should all look for each other too.
Informative article for filing for reference, thanks
March 16th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Great article, Louie. It would take a lot of legislation and a great amount of cyber-policing so I doubt if internet plagiarism will ever be stamped out. I don’t know if the readers are aware of the fact that copyright doesn’t have to be registered in most countries, but you do have to prove when you actually created your work.
For what it’s worth, what I do is put a copyright symbol (Hold down Ctrl and Alt at the same time and press C [Ctrl+Alt+C] or Hold down Alt and type 0169 on the number pad on right hand side of your keyboard [Alt+0169] on most PC keyboards) at the bottom of my article, next to the symbol I type the year and next to that I type my name.
i.e. © 2009 George W Whitehead
Then I email it to myself so that it has some sort of time/date stamp on it.
I don’t know if this would be proof in a court of law, but it keeps me happy.
March 16th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
That’s a good idea, George, regarding adding copyright symbol to the bottom of the article. ctrl+alt+C works for me!
March 16th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Great article Louie it is so sad that people stoop to this and to copy it word for word I never knew this could even be done. sad part is there is no help for the writer.
March 16th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Excellent – thank you.
March 16th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Sadly, this problem is as old as Will Shakespeare (the old boy filed off a lot of serial numbers and claimed the work as his own). At a workshop I once went to, the fellow sitting next to me remarked that if he put it on the internet, he figured it was public property. It’s a shame that people are like that; but I’d rather put my stuff on Triond than have it languishing in a drawer.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Louie, I find it very sad that someone cannot come up with an original idea of their own. Stealing just takes all the fun out of it, kind of like watching someone else eat only more so. I love writing & cannot imagine giving it up.
I like George’s idea and I’ve been practicing. Unfortunately, I can’t get the first one, but the second works.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Louie, great advice, and thanks for sharing. Get rich quick will not happen on a PC Im pretty sure of it, keeping the best for last in some secure way should be every writers thought. Your friend,fan,smile
March 16th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Thanks for that. It’s a great article–hope this is the only place I see it!
Inna
March 16th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Great advice Louie and a sad fact about writers works.
March 16th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Great info.
March 17th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Great info and so true!
March 20th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
great article and advice!