Originally posted by Icarus Rising
So, say I wanted to write a book called "I am Icarus Rising", or something like that, made up exclusively of my posts to this site, would I need
ATS's permission to publish it? And if so, would I be able to get that permission? Would you want a cut of the proceeds, if there ever were any?
Would you be willing to assist in the effort in exchange?
Wow, that's like four questions in a row, but I am very curious about this, and I have considered it as an effort to avoid bankruptcy and
homelessness.
If these questions are not appropriate for an open forum, maybe you would consider a U2U in response.
Thanks.
Here's the way I understand it, and I've done a little writing if that helps.
When you write something it becomes your intellectual property at that moment.
If you knocked out a book and serialized it on ATS, it's still your intellectual property.
Others may copy it off the site and how are you going to stop them?
But . . . they can't publish it and claim it as their own.
Copyrights come into play when you get into publishing the book.
Library of Congress, ISBN numbers etc.
Fair play use is - as I understand it - a critic/reviewer or another author may quote small parts of the book to illustrate a point, but they do have
to give the author credit.
Using titles only in your manuscript isn't a problem.
in fact, you could title your book, "The Old Man and The Sea" and be within your legal rights although you'd be looked down upon by the publishing
community and probably by the general citizenry and I'd stay away from Hemingway's old haunts where the afficionado's hang out.
Somewhere along the line, the courts realized how easy it is/was to end up with the same title someone used long ago or even recently.
Perhaps the decision would have gone differently if Google and the like had been available.
Just for fun I Googled, "I am Icarus Rising" and found no hits in the first few listings.
Idea's are a different story.
Figure out a better mousetrap on paper, post it on the Internet and if the idea is a good one it will get stolen and probably get patented under the
thiefs name.
Pursue the idea far enough, build your better mousetrap to prove it works and the same thing happens.
To a great degree, even patents aren't good enough nowadays.
Get a patent on your mousetrap, get a company interested in building it, start selling it and 2-4 months down the line the Chinese - via an
unscrupulous American company/distributor - will have a knock off, sell a bunch for a cheaper price and even if you win in court you've already lost.
