I've seen several people mention this recently and want EVERYONE to understand what's what here. Seems there are more "rumors" of falsehoods than facts going around so here is the "Official Version".

In plain English...

You have ALL of the RIGHTS to your original work that any author anywhere else would have.

The only "difference" here is you are sharing those rights with AboveTopSecret.com, L.L.P. per the T.A.C.

We have NON Exclusive rights to use any member's original work any way we think it benefits the site.

YOU have NON Exclusive rights to use your original work any way you want.

We DO NOT own your work exclusively, nor have we taken ANY rights to your work away from you.

By agreeing to the TAC, you agree to share the rights to your work with us.

This is the case even in the event of you making money off of your work. You owe us NOTHING if you get paid for something you wrote.

Same for us, if we make money off of your work (ad revenues that pay for the site, etc...) we owe you nothing.

Hope this helps clear this up for everyone.

Springer
Partner
AboveTopSecret.com, L.L.P.



[edit on 10-13-2005 by Springer]

Everything said by Springer is accurate and you can bank on it.

Just one little caveat.

By sharing exclusivity with ATS (i.e. posting on ATS) some publishing houses and magazines etc may not want to publish your work if it is not an "original" work in the true sense. (i.e. it has never appeared in "public" before).

So while you do retain the right to market your work with no obligation to ATS (and vice versa) it's not a good idea to post something on the forums that you intend to publish for money in the real world.
.

I have not ever seen this mentioned.. seems like a bit of a funny thing to bring up. Why is there the need to stress the importance when what has been said is true?

Yes, it has been brought up before, and more than once. But right now, it has been brought up today.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Apparently the thought is that since there was this singular point of confusion, a BB&Q thread with the exact title would ensure others who might be confused noticed as well. That makes sense to me at least.

What happens if you've been paid for work, wherein you granted exclusive rights, but afterwards posted it on ATS? Would ATS be liable if it re-published material someone else has exclusive rights for?

I wouldn't think so, ktpr...I would think the member who broke the contract with the original purchaser of the exclusive rights would be in deep doo-doo though, wouldn't you?

I understand the duel-ownership stuff. That isn't a problem.

But, if you scroll all the way down, and read the little copywrite blurb there, it says:

All content and unique names copyright 2004 Above Top Secret and the respective content authors,
no material, unique feature names, unique content names, or other ATS-unique items may be duplicated elsewhere
in content or name without the expressed permission of the website owner.

The key being "without express permission of the website owner."

Which, to my understanding, is ATS.

And the "content authors"...that disclaimer is to people who are not either of the following:

1. ATS
2. the person who wrote it.

For example, I have all my ATSNN original articles on my own website. Well, I did until my server host farkled my site up .

I'm going to give another example.

If you are a member of another board and you use some other member name on that board and you decide to publish on that board an article you wrote for ATSNN. You are not required to put any type of link to ATSNN, because it's your article.

BUT - lol - what's going to happen is eventually some member here is going to notice it and say 'OH MY GOSH WE'VE BEEN PLAGIARIZED!!!' and you'd have to come forward and probably prove to ATS that it is you.

ATS doesn't want your stuff ripped off either.

Valhall summed up the good bits precisely.

Gools' comment I find interesting though. It might be possible that a "magazine" would consider something published on ATS as "used" intellectual property, though I doubt, if it's really good, they would exclude it from their publication. Two utterly different audiences, trust me.

In either case, post what you want, do with it as you see fit, and be GLAD ATS is here for ALL OF US.

Springer...

Thats why we have rules agains posting entire articles or excessive quoting and ask for original contributions from members, especially in the writing forums and the blogs.

And as Val said, ATS is not liable for the actions of the person who violated their contract. In fact we stop the infringment once it has been brought to our attention by removing or editing posts with entire articles or long quotes. Or we ask the member to do it if the 2 hour edit window is still open.
.

There is no reason to fear posting original work here in these many forums. You own your work, and agree per the terms and conditions of use to share your work. Seems simple enough to me.

Also, think of this.. ATS has massive traffic, so the higher the quality and originality of your posts are, the better the response to it will be. Not only that as an author, your work can be seen by literally thousands here everyday.

When you post a well written, well researched original item here. It is a win/win situation for both yourself and ATS. Seeing your work published here instantly, watching the reaction and getting involved in the following discussion can be far more rewarding than almost anything else, and can serve you and others well as inspiration for future work here or where ever.


UM_Gazz

I agree, which is why there is a market for non-exclusive intellectual property rights. There is also a market for exclusive rights and in the context of book publishing "first publication" is sought after. (ok nobody is publishing a book on ATS )

But who knows, I may be missing a subtlety of copyright law here since I deal mainly with patent rights where the concept of novelty is similarly applied.

An invention is not by definition an invention (not novel) if it has appeard anywhere in public through publication, presentation, use or sale.

Patent licenses can also be exclusive, as in often the case in the pharmaceutical industry, or non-exclusive as in the case of many process patents licensed to many manufacturers.

But novelty and exclusivity are separate concepts in Patent law and maybe the publication/exclusivity concepts in copyright are interpreted differently.

Sorry if I'm confusing the situation.

Move along... nothing to see here...
.

Will this be of any assistance?
1.In order to qualify for copyright,the work in question must be an original work.No one can receive pay for your work but you.
2.When you 'publish' your work with a publisher,that publisher usually receives compensation for your work and pays you in turn.
3.If you submit your work on a public domain such as ATS you may or may not be compensated for it.It depends on your agreement with the domain.(check the rules of the site)
4.As long as the work is stored in either a paper or electronic medium by the original author when first written,that person may hold the copyright.
5.You may sell your right to a copyright.
6.To protect your right you may wish to obtain a copright registration and complete it.
7.If you produce a work while under employment,your employer may actually hold the copyright if the situation warrants it.
8.The doctrine of fair use allows the public use of your copyrighted work to some extent.It cannot be copied in its entirety and it cannot be used to receive compensation based soley on your work.
There are many different situations and exceptions to this law.I would reccomend looking up this publication>>>
Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the Copyright law(1961) as well as the actual law itself.For a link go to
www.copyright.gov
I hope this can be of help.When I started writing I was confused as you no what about this copyright stuff.Usually there isn't any problems though.Plagerization is a rare crime.Except for institutes of higher learning I've been told.

in the case of visual works of art, and small- personal publications- such as self-produced poetry books, articles, etc. releasing them to the public before you've actually obtained copyright registration can limit the remedies in the event of an infringement and cause serious complications trying to prove authorship. you only have a time span of (oh, dear, i've forgotten! six months? one year?) to register a work once you've released it to the public in order to have full protections.

when you've created an original 'work' you ARE the copyright holder from the moment of its completion, but in order for the courts to recognize you as such, you must have the work properly registered (and your registration begins as soon as they've received your application, even if you don't get the actual certificate back for six weeks) if you are attempting to publish artwork or material, are very serious about it and interested in protecting your rights, the last thing i would do is put it out openly for all the world to see (or misuse) without having some amount of protection in place. for writers and artists, this is essential to your income and survival in a world where it happens more frequently than one would like to think.

in some cases, for those who have neglected to register their work and find themselves on the short end of an infringement, the licensing agent may step in on behalf of the copyright holder (depending on how serious the infringement is)- and the first date of publication, which they can help establish, is generally accepted by the courts (although the statutory damages are restricted), but it can still shut the infringing party down. think it's not big business? if the infringer is making any profit whatsoever, the registered copyright holder is entitled to it, and this can easily escalate into BIG BUCK$$ while the person who just claims copyright and can prove it will usually receive some compensation, but not nearly the same... (i only speak of u.s. registrations of course, worldwide we're dealing with a whole 'nutha can of worms)

i don't see where ATS has attempted to 'move in' on anyone's rights to their own pieces.... but it seems to me they are asking our agreement not to 'copy' anyone else's work or any creations exclusive to the site and flit off somewhere else claiming it as your own. while something like this should be common sense, they probably
a) would like to limit infringing on anyone else's rights (hence, quote a portion of someone else's article, but not the whole darn thing...)
b) encourage continued submissions by reassuring members that their works will not be plaguerized (at least by those who have submitted to this agreement)
and c) they would like the continued use of your work (and can you blame them!- such excellent articles!) so in agreeing we are openly granting them license for use of what we have submitted (and on the other side of the coin, it protects them from anyone turning around later and trying to say that they have been infringed in any way)

not trying to speak on ATS' behalf by any means... but i understand and agree one hundred percent with them trying to make it clear and protect themselves (and their members) in the process.... personal experience has familiarized me with all sorts of little dirty 'ins' and 'outs' of copyright law and exposed me to many of the fine loopholes others use to try and step in on another's success... most of the members willing to agree to this arrangement would never be involved in any trouble related to such matters anyway, but isn't it refreshing to know that ATS is 'watching'?

~amithyzt

(Stepping in... for the record, I'm a published author and have stories in magazines and paperback books from large publishing houses. I prefer not to promote my work here.)




Yes, in fact ATS would be liable. It's okay to cite some lines and point to the work, but if you repost material to which you've given away the copyright, then you can be punished and so can the recipient.

ATS is similar to a magazine. We own the "compilation rights" which means that nobody can copy the website and get away with it without permission. If you grab an article from Time Magazine and publish it on your website without permission, Time can come after you.

The writer still owns the rights to the article but until they resell the article, Time can control how and where the article appears.

You can republish your content any time and any where... but *I* can't.

(oh yes... ATS actually went after a couple of people who grabbed content from our members.)

Actually, they would.

It's not "used intellectual property"... it's publishing rights.

Now... you own a lot of rights with your words. Let's say that I sell the article I've written on "the hitching post of the sun" -- a stone artifact at Machu Pichu. (Yes, that's a real artifact and I do have the article mostly written.) I can then sell:
* first world rights
* first English language rights
* first (insert your language) rights
* first electronic rights
* reprint rights
...and if it's a novel -length work, I can also sell
* screenplay rights
* movie rights
* television rights
* comic book rights
* graphic novel rights
* gaming rights
* ebook rights
* computer game rights
* musical/operatic/theatre rights

Not all of those are applicable to every work (a short article on nuclear fusion will most likely not be turned into a hot computer game or an opera.) Each one of those is worth $200 - $15,000 PER SALE. Plus royalties, in some cases.

This is how authors make money.

I have't covered the full range of rights, either, that you could sell.

Now... if you publish your story/novel here, you just gave up first world rights, first electronic rights, first English language rights, and you may have given up other rights as well.

A reprint story sells for about $5.00 - $20.00 per story (not 3 cents - 10 cents per word.) Reprint novels are almost never accepted unless you or th book are quite famous. ("story" in this case means 5,000 words or so. Yes I know there are shorter forms of articles and fiction. Novel means 60,000 words and upwards.)

Does posting here hurt? Not really. I can, for instance, find my posts on Sitchin and use them as a basis for a much longer book on the REAL history and anthropology of unusual artifacts. I can turn one of my rants into a longer article and it will sell just fine. If I have fiction that I want to write just to practice, I will usually rework it to be something based on tv fandom and will toss it to the fanfic archives (under a pseudonym.)

Hope that clarifies things.

Great points Gools and Byrd. Thanks.

Re: ATS' Creative Commons Deed

As written, the deed says that Springer must be credited as the writer of everything posted here, whether or not he wrote it:






This is not what I remember the Creative Commons license as saying when I last looked at it.

So - Is this true?

Or is it just meant as an example?



Gools and Byrd: What are the chances of a writer selling their work if they have to say someone else is the author?

The deed linked from each post is dynamic and unique.

This a deed for one of your threads:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
"You must attribute authorship of the work to "soficrow; a member of AboveTopSecret.com"; ownership of the work to the author and AboveTopSecret.com, LLP; the title of the message thread, What is Happening to Bird Flu?; and this full link URL: www.abovetopsecret.com... "