Website Copyright

[Mr.Ix]

I have been submitting self written brain teasers on a fairly well known website for some time now. The site has a disclaimer saying that it does not claim to hold the copyright of anything submitted by its users. My question is, is it possible for me to establish copyright on my teasers now I have submitted them and if so , how do I go about it. I have written about 450 of them.

[andy hughes]

I think 'retrospective' copyright is a non-starter - your work is out there in the public domain, so trying to claim it now would probably be futile.

As far as future work goes - you would need agreement from the site owners to put 'Copyright Mr Jx 2005' after each posting - if they are happy, then no problem.

Otherwise you can add that message to your material when you post it to the owners, and ask them to acknowledge that copyright belongs to you.

To be honest, as an unapid poster on a site, you are going to be very lucky if you can actual obtain, and keep track of copyright on your material - the possibilities for it being taken and used are as huge as the cahnces of you finding the users are small. that's the way the web works. Sorry to be a doom-merchant, but at least you know what you are dealing with.

[Mr.Ix]

Thanks for that Andy. The Website in question does state that items submitted do NOT constitute being in the public domain, if that makes a difference? Other than that, it seems like this is a non-starter. Ah well

[ElsieD]

Hello Mr Ix. My understanding is that the moment you write something, copyright belongs to you. Proving it might be a problem, though. Apparently there are special envelopes that you can get from the PO that you can put your work in and date and send to yourself, which you keep sealed for instances where you might need proof of copyright. Are you hoping to sell them to a publication now?

[Mr.Ix]

I'm not sure, to start with I submitted them for a bit of fun, but after a while I found I had a talent for it and I have now written about 400 of them. Just wondered in case in the future I did decide to publish, that was all. Interesting point about the envelopes though

[acidicpyxie]

I am a photographer and sometime writer.  I know first hand how hard it is to figure out what copy right you do have over your work.

Any work that you come up with is your intellectual property.  If they state in their terms that they do not claim the work of the users as their own then they're not breaching your copyright.

You can publish your works and get the collection copywritten. 

If you wish to retain some control over the copyright of the writing submitted to an online collection I suggest you go to

http://creativecommons.org/

and see how to license out your work.  good luck!