Many writers live
in fear that someone will steal her or his great idea for a novel, movie, or
whatever. They fear even worse that some scumbag will steal their actual work
outright, word-for-word.
Some writers, as a
result, hide their work from all but the most trusted eyes. You shouldn’t.
Let’s say that you
put some of your work online for free. Let’s say that nearly every writer’s
nightmare (mine involve sock puppets with rabies, but this isn’t about me)
comes true. Someone reads your work, put his own name on it, and steals it.
Good news exists.
You put your work out there at an earlier
date with your name on it. A
potential thief will find it more difficult to steal from someone who makes her
work more visible.
What if someone
steals my idea? What if someone rewrites a story like mine and publishes it?
Unfortunately,
nothing. Take the compliment? You cannot copyright an idea, and, frankly, it
would prove a bad thing if you could.
Imagine if someone
obtained a copyright for every idea that passed through his head. Some real
writer would, eventually, write something similar. The person who merely
registered a similar idea could sue you, if this sort of nonsense happened.
Not everyone gets
a story right the first time. Stories and their characters evolve to create new
stories and new characters. If ideas couldn’t do that, then fewer (if any) new
stories would ever arise.
Imagine if Stan
Lee faced a cease-and-desist warrant from the family of whoever invented Greek or Norse mythology?
You will find it
difficult to write a novel that no one can rewrite differently and slap upon it
her own name.
You will find it
all but impossible to write a script
in such a fashion.
Why would a script
prove more difficult to protect? Anyone can write a novel similar to yours.
However, no one can, without plagiarizing, write, word-for-word, your same
novel.
No one, in other
words, can write your novel in your distinct voice.
Likewise, anyone
could produce a film about dinosaurs, but no one can direct it the way Steven Spielberg
did (however, many people could write a similar story).
The best
protection for your work remains:
1)
A voice no one can copy
2)
Exposure
While the fear
that someone might steal your idea easily leads to a fear of exposure, exposure
acts as your best friend when/if someone ever does steal your work.
3)
Register your work with the Writer’s Guild.
You can do so for
fewer than thirty bucks, and you may perform the task electronically at https://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss/dataentry.asp.
The guild will,
shortly after you register, send you a dated certification, which you ought to
keep somewhere safe.
The world won’t
end if you lose this certification. You work remains registered, and you can,
for a tiny fee, obtain another copy of certification for the same work.
You don’t require
membership with the guild for this service.
You might consider
an additional registration with the Library of Congress.
You don’t need to apply for a patent.
Never allow some middleman, online
“business” to register your work for you. It proves just
as easy (and cheaper) to register your work yourself as to pay someone else to
do it.
Most of these
middleman “businesses” exists as scams, anyway.
Don’t fear
exposure. Put your work out there.
Thanks for reading.
Daughters of Darkwana received a sweet, succinct
review, which you can read here, http://www.thebookeaters.co.uk/daughters-of-darkwana-by-martin-wolt-jr/
Also,
the third book in my series, Diaries of
Darkwana, will hit Kindle just as soon as I find a new cover artist. I have
a few candidates already, thank goodness.
I might likely put my entire novel series on
sale soon to celebrate the last arrival of Diaries
of Darkwana.
I
publish my blogs as follows:
Tuesdays:
A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.
Wednesdays:
An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com
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