Copyright and Publishing Concerns, at Mosaic Musings Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hi all!

We've been discussing both Copyright and Publishing Rights of Internet boards recently and I wanted to let everyone know that Peter aka Imhotep will be meeting with an Intellectual Property/Copyright Attorney this coming Tuesday, Nov 4, 2003, on our behalf. This is exciting!

While a member at other boards, these topics rarely ever surfaced in my case. All three boards were 'Public' and it was assumed that anything we post is copyright protected.

For a thorough definition on 'What is a Copyright?' and 'Copyright on the Internet' PLEASE visit this link: http://whatiscopyright.org/

The Mentors and I have been preparing a list of questions, some basic and some more advanced for discussion. Here are some of the items:

1. If a work is posted on the internet, in any forum at all, does it still retain the author's right to copyright. or is it regarded as free share.

2.  By posting at MM, do I, the poet, grant MM my First Publication rights?  Or, is First Publication Rights a negotiable concept, via each publisher's opinion?

3. When a poem is posted on a critique site, is it by copyright standings, workshopped and therefore not considered published? Or does there need to be a delete period of that said thread in order to hold full copyright and for it to be considered as "not published?"

4. Will posting in a critique forum (or otherwise) at MM, immediately render a work 'unpublishable' by certain publishers?

5. Does the distinction between 'public' forum and 'private' forum postings make a difference in the eyes of a publisher? Are they BOTH held to the same standard view of 'published' by virtue of the posting on the Web itself?

We will update everyone after the meeting next week. This may well determine the outcome of going 'Private' or adding 'private forums' to MM.

Regards!
Mosaic Musings Staff

[Imhotep]

Greetings,

I asked the question as to whether the notice should be placed on each message and it was explained to me that copyright and associated restriction notices shouldn't be part of your signature, but rather should be posted at the bottom of the initial post of the work, and any re-posting of the work in total after revisions and changes.  If you make it part of your signature then it'll be in every post you make, regardless of what that specific post is discussing, and it is possible to be overly broad in claimed protections.

For example, a company used to automatically add a "This communication is protected and confidential (blah blah blah)" for every email that went through their servers figuring this would protect their work and secrets, regardless of the actual content of that email.  Jokes, emails home with shopping lists, didn't matter what they were talking about, the notice was automatically added to any email.  When they later attempted to sue another company for infringement of trade secrets claiming that all their communications were protected, the court ruled that by claiming everything was protected,  regardless of the actual content, they were overly broad in their assertions  and lost all of their protections, even the ones associated with the real product, and by proxy the case.

Take care,
I