When Your Work Is Published Without Your Consent

[hufflee]

As an author, you automatically hold copyright.  You don't have to go through a special process.

 
I didn't know that. It's good to know, thanks!

[Katefox]

I didn't know that. It's good to know, thanks!

 
And I've heard that a really good way of proving you're the original author/copyright holder is to mail yourself a copy of the manuscript as soon as it's finished.  The post office stamps the date it received the letter over the stamps.  So all you have to do is hold on to the sealed envelope.  If you ever end up in a copyright dispute, you have physical proof that you came up with the material first.  Unless the post office no longer stamps the date on packages, but I assume they must...

[Melamphoros]

And I've heard that a really good way of proving you're the original author/copyright holder is to mail yourself a copy of the manuscript as soon as it's finished.  The post office stamps the date it received the letter over the stamps.  So all you have to do is hold on to the sealed envelope.  If you ever end up in a copyright dispute, you have physical proof that you came up with the material first.  Unless the post office no longer stamps the date on packages, but I assume they must...

 
I don't know, I heard somewhere that that doesn't really hold up in court (something about the post office stamps easily being faked, I think).

[SunflowerP]

This would work well if I had a either a website for the myth cycle or a website for me as an author up and running, which I could ask them to link to. I'm going to have to get such a website sooner or later anyway.

That was my main thought on reading this - you need your own website.  If there's someplace for these folks to link to, quite a few of them will be quite happy to do so (and some won't, but that'll be the case no matter what).

I certainly don't like the idea of alienating potential readers/fan base, esp. those who have demonstrated a willingness to publicize my work and credit it. (Heck, they liked it enough to retype the damn thing themselves.) These are folks I'm going to need if I ever do get the myth cycle published.

 
Yep.  In at least some of these cases (the ones who actually transcribed it; there may be some who just copypasted from the transcribers' sites), these are folks who think your work should be more widely available than it is, and are doing something about it (around about there, we get into the ways that copyright as it currently stands doesn't always serve the purposes its PR says it serves, but that's beyond the scope of this thread).  They might even be thrilled to hear from you, and very amenable to working with you to find a solution that suits both you and them - that's where being polite and friendly in your first contact with them could really pay off.

Sunflower

[Jenett]

And I've heard that a really good way of proving you're the original author/copyright holder is to mail yourself a copy of the manuscript as soon as it's finished.  The post office stamps the date it received the letter over the stamps.  So all you have to do is hold on to the sealed envelope.  If you ever end up in a copyright dispute, you have physical proof that you came up with the material first.  Unless the post office no longer stamps the date on packages, but I assume they must...

 
This is a myth, unfortunately (because you're right, it'd a simple way to prove creation date...)

It's also not much use in the most common situation these days - someone's work showing up online. Online, there's a specific set of procedures to follow in the US (or sites hosted in the US) dictated by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. They're fairly *stupid* procedures, in some ways, but they're what we've got. In that, you basically say "I swear under penalty of perjury that this material here is mine, and that this person there didn't have the right to post it." And the site takes you at your word.

The time you need proof is if it actually goes to court - but with most online uses, no one bothers, because it's expensive, you've got to figure out which jurisdiction you file in (yours, theirs, or where the site's hosted...) and so on. Sites hosts are not law courts: they can't (and shouldn't determine proof). They're just supposed to follow the guidelines of the DMCA. And for that, in a case like Altair's, a scan of the original published work would be just fine, or some other clear reference.

[RandallS]

I like this tack, EXCEPT that I'm planning to pitch the entire myth cycle to a publisher. I'm wondering if having a part of it, in a very early version, out there available online compromises my chances of acceptance.

That depends on the publisher, I'm afraid. If you want to play it safe, just ask them to take it down (perhaps with a brief "I'm trying to get this published and having parts of it up on the Internet hurt the chances of publication" type explanation). I've found that most people will cooperate provided you don't start out being nasty/legalistic about it. Of course, as most sites aren't ran as a business, it make take them days or weeks to even notice your emails (especially if they end up in a junk mail folder).

[diana_rajchel]

I like this tack, EXCEPT that I'm planning to pitch the entire myth cycle to a publisher. I'm wondering if having a part of it, in a very early version, out there available online compromises my chances of acceptance.

Anyone have any good intel on that?

 
It depends on the publisher, but for the most part, it shouldn't affect it and may be seen as "buzz" or good marketing, which will also be something your publisher looks at closely.

[Altair]

That was my main thought on reading this - you need your own website.  If there's someplace for these folks to link to, quite a few of them will be quite happy to do so (and some won't, but that'll be the case no matter what).

I think the personal website is going to have to become a priority. My fiance is actually an excellent website designer, and I put him on notice months ago that he'd have to do a website for me. So I guess I should get him busy.

And thanks to the great advice you, Sunflower, and so many others have given me, I'm not going to go in guns blazing. There's no need. (Esp. considering that, although I only discovered these links yesterday, they've probably been up for a while...years even...so I needn't rush to do anything.) I think with a little diplomacy, I can turn this to everyone's advantage.

[Altair]

Depends on the publisher, and depends on how much (percent wise) it's a part of the finished work.

That said, the issue is usually with publication at all - so the fact it already saw print would be a consideration anyway. If you pitch it as "I did some initial writing about it [reference to published work], but this is now expanded - 120 pages as compared to 20, and I've substantially edited those pieces to fit the larger scope of the work..." then you're probably just fine.

You'd be even more fine if you just rewrote the original work (same ideas, new words.) which you may well want to do anyway, just so it fits well with the more recent work. Once you change the wording substantially, it's a different piece of work. (You'd still need to cite the ideas, if it was someone else's work, but as it's yours, you'd just say "includes a substantial rewriting of material covered in an earlier article, published [reference]...")

Thanks Jenett, Catja, Randall, Diana, and everybody else who weighed in on this.

These versions of the myths are so early that, while the substance hasn't changed much if at all, the way I tell them has altered greatly. And they constitute only about 10%, tops, of the larger work. So I think I'm on fairly safe ground with potential publishers.