Story codes and copyright question

[MMI]

I have nothing to say about the story codes, but the questions about copyright interested me.

First of all, you can't copyright ideas, but you do have a copyright over the material you write. So if I write a story about one thing, and you write a different story, using my ideas, but adapting them to your own plot, then you have not breached my copyright. Otherwise there could only be one murder story, one love story, one mystical tale ...

If you publish a story on a website, you may have to grant the website certain rights over your work - a licence to publish in all probability. You can regard this as the price you have to pay to get published. You may have to grant those rights permanently, or just for so long as your works appear on the site. The websites have different requirements in this regard.

[lucy]

Thanks a lot, MMI.

[leo9]

If you publish a story on a website, you may have to grant the website certain rights over your work - a licence to publish in all probability. You can regard this as the price you have to pay to get published. You may have to grant those rights permanently, or just for so long as your works appear on the site. The websites have different requirements in this regard.

Another point worth knowing: I have recently started offering material to commercial e-publishers, and they have stated that when they specify "not previously published elsewhere," they don't count free sites like the Library. Good to know for anyone who might have ambitions to move into pro writing: work posted here is not wasted for future sales.