Picture this: while surfing the web you come across one of your articles with somebody else’s name on it – and you can’t do a thing do about it.
Impossible? Don’t bet on it! This is the exact nightmare scenario a friend of mine found himself in a short while ago.
Some time ago my friend made the decision to try to earn some extra money with freelance writing. She created an online portfolio consisting of her best unpublished articles.
Shortly afterwards one of these articles appeared on the web site of a well-known company. She contacted the company in question – they claimed that the article had been written by one of their staff. Not only that, they actually threatened my friend with legal action if she did not remove the article from her own web site! And because my friend could offer no proof that she wrote the article, she could do nothing except drop the whole thing.
This sort of theft is a very real threat in the Internet age. My friend created her article on her computer – no handwritten copy to help her prove her case. After all, how can you prove that that you didn’t lift the files on your computer from somewhere? Take this article, for example. All you need to do is select ‘Edit->Select All’, then ‘Copy’ and ‘Paste’ in a new document, add your name and save the whole thing. You can do the same thing with web site content, of course, as my friend found out.
Instant plagiarism, no waiting.
‘So what about Copyright law?’ I hear you cry. Sure, copyright law protects your work as soon as you set it down in permanent form, but you still need a way of proving that you’re the one who actually created it. Fortunately there are several options of doing just that, and not all of them prohibitively expensive!
Firstly you can register your copyright with the copyright agency of whichever country you live in, if you can. If your copyright agency does not offer a registration service, you could ask a solicitor to draw up the necessary legal documents to identify you as the author of your work. Use one of these options to make your copyright registration official. Unfortunately both can get quite expensive, especially if you produce a lot of written work, like articles.
I, for example, could not afford to register every single article I write, so I use something known as “Poor Man’s Copyright”. The principle is simple – print off a copy of your work, stick it in an envelope and send it to yourself. When the envelope arrives, make sure it’s still completely sealed and that the date stamp can be read clearly. Put the envelope away in a safe place – since nobody could possibly own an earlier copy (unless somebody hacked into your computer), you can use this as proof of intellectual ownership.
Now you can publish your work on the Internet (or anywhere else for that matter).
Once your work becomes better known, the risk of theft dwindles. People will recognise your unique writing style, which in turn will discourage thieves. Once you are established you will no longer find it necessary to protect every single article you write, although I would still recommend it for larger works, like novels or anthologies. In this case you should consider going through the proper channels, however. Don’t rely on “Poor Man’s Copyright” – that is only a stopgap measure and could conceivably be contested in court. With proper copyright registration or notarisation, you will always be on the safe side.
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