Technical question about posting poetry?

[Guest]

Hi, first I want to thanks those sharing before me. I love poetry that gives me tears and joy!

Now my newbie questions: Can I cut and paste from my Word documents? Do I need to re-size or any other preparation? Will my copy right symbols show? Do my poems remain my intellectual property? Thanks for any help as I want to publish my work later on. Sorry if I ask in the wrong place. I love to share. Moderators; If this needs to be pulled can you e-mail me please, Jody

[MaryEllen]

This is our position on copyrighted material.

You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board. All material on this site is copyrighted by Laura's Playground. Reproduction or copying of this material without written permission is strictly prohibited by law.

You may cut and paste from word documents but don't be surprised if it come out with a lot of code and hash marks with it. Resizing shouldn't be necessary. Hope this helps.

MaryEllen

[Guest]

Thanks so much! Yes everything I create, write and copy right is from my pretzel logic humor and/or deep from within my soul. Jody... PS pull this post if needed. Thanks again.

[Guest DanD]

If you cut and paste from your doc files to plain wordpad or notepad it would eliminate the extra techncal greek-looking computerese marks and leave only the text, and those can be cut and pasted.

ive been reading mine thru notepad so copying the text is easy.

sometimes i have to redo the spacing or the punctuation, depending what it was in originally.

actually anytime you write something, it has a commonlaw copyright right away, you can verify it by sending it to yourself in a letter and never open the envelope. it becomes your evidence of the date it was written. that is an old laymans way to copyright something.

if you put in an email or post it online, it gets a date affixed to it as a copyright proof of the date it was posted anyway. you'd just print out a copy and save it.

that usually works if theres any infringement issues later on.

Another way to copyright is to print or write your words down, get a copyright form for written words, and sent it in with a check, its usually about $20.00

The BEST way to really copyright words is to print it out, as many things as you want on the pages, and as many pages as you want...(but i wouldnt make it too huge)

then give the entire collection of poems a project title or book title, and then get the forms from the copyright office, and fil them out and send that in.

thats still about 20.00 I think? (prices may have gone up since i checked last) the collective work has a main title for reference but the other things inside are part of that same copyright, similar to chapters in a book.

If you write songs, you can just record an el cheapo recording (they used to allow simple cassettes, but maybe CD now.)

if you put a bunch of your songs onto a tape(CD) you can copyright the whole thing, with the lyrics, by using the SR copyright forms. SR= Sound recording

I did this with mine. Put a buncha songs onto tape, then you put the titles on the form (if you can make them fit in the space) and/or just do a collective title for the whole thing, one name. I put both down for mine. I typed the words on the form so they looked neat. for best results include lyrics on paper, and maybe include the basic cords with the lyrics.

then you write out the check and put it all together in a package and send it in.

afterwards they will send you a copy of your copyright form, but it will have their sections filled out, and signatures and seals on it.

I used forms that I downloaded, but they sent me new ones, saying "in the future use these forms," because the clarity & quality is better. Then frame your copyright and hang it, or just put it in a file somewhere for safekeeping.

that way it covered the lyirics as well as the music, and the recording itself. used to be only 20 dollars, but its probably more like 30 now..you'd just have to check online.

They do send forms in the mail to you for free, if you ask for them.

[Guest]

Thanks Dan, I can use the help, sweet of you too. Jody

[Guest miss kindheart]

Hi Jody

<<< hug >>>

Welcome to Laura's Playground.

Please feel free to come over and chat sometime.

The Chat room does require another registration that is separate from from your forums one.

Please read the chat room rules before coming in, and expect a short interview with one of the chat room moderators.

One of the things that they will ask you is if you read the rules.

We have MTF meetings-Mon & Sat 9pm est, and you are welcome to attend.

We all look forward to seeing you.

vanna

PS use CTL C to copy and CTL V to Paste and it won't end up as gobbly goup

[Guest Edu]

Dan's answer about copyright is quite complete, but I'd like to synthesize two key points I think should be highlighted:

• Any author gets the copyright of a work, automatically, from the sole fact of authoring it.
  
• The main purpose of copyright registration is to serve as a proof in the event of copyright-related claims. This doesn't invalidate other forms of proof, but when a work's copyright is registered, its registration is the most convenient proof available.
  

Also, a further tip on copy-pasting: if you look on the post editing toolbar, the right-most icon on the top bar is labelled "Paste from Word". That function is meant to process any formatting data Word includes within the text and transform it into the formatting tags used by the forums. Typical stuff such as text color, font, size, bold, and italics should work fine. Other stuff may be trickier. And don't even try to get WordArt or embedded objects to work (although, if your goal is to post poetry, it's unlikely that you are using such things).

Just make sure you preview your post and things should work fine.

HTH,

Ethain

[Guest DanD]

yup Ethain said it right.. its automaticly copyrighted once you got it down, but i was mentioning variou ways to help with that claim of copyright, and of course the best way to ensure youre legally covered is the registration.

i wrote a song that was stolen and was a big hit song too! really ticked me off. i used to make these cassette recordings of my songs for freinds and give them out, you know, never in a million years imagining that someone would steal one of the songs.. at least one of them anyway. I didnt bother to register the copyrights back then. i thought it was a lot of money -found out later its not very much after all.

i would put dates on every poem or song, with the C thingy like youre supposed to. but..its not the same as registering it.

once it is recorded by another and you discover the theft of your song, you only have 6 months to file a claim, and there's a lot of things you have to do prior to that too, and i didnt realize that and put it off.

imagine that! my sister saud to me one say, she heard a song on the radio and it seemed familiar, reminded her of something i wrote. and of course im not thinking she meant literally, just someone who wrote something similar.

it sort of makes me annoyed when i think of it sometimes, but in some ways it makes me realize, you know maybe my songs arent so bad after all. i mean, i liked them usually, but it doesnt mean other people might like them. too darn insecure you know.

but it generated money too and thats another thing..coulda had alot of things done with that if i had it. bummer huh?

Michelle told me what i shoukd do is just go ahead and relase my own version of the song. and let her sue me for it! she would lose, becuase i could prove i wrote it before she did.