Protecting your privacy and copyright

Poetry with meaning takes your privacy and copyright very seriously. Recently there was an outside person who emailed me and started a discussion violently screaming at me to take someone else's work down. Ultimately, the person was unable to prove that their work was their own.

Please remember that in order to prove you own a piece of writing you must prove two things:

1. The work was indeed authored by you (signature, etc)
2. The work was created prior to the offending copyright violation

This means that you must point out something with a date on it that is attributed to you. Here at Poetry with meaning we record two dates on the site: the written on date (the date of which you created the poem), and the date it was published on PWM. The second date is the date of authority in copyright disputes since it's the first time that we can verify you created the poem.

Copyright law is a tricky thing here in America since copyright is implicit (meaning you do not have to do anything to claim copyright). However, you should always be aware how to defend the copyright in the future. If you are preparing to publish your poem in a journal or book, I highly suggest you look into registered copyrights.

If you have any questions or know of any poems in a copyright dispute on Poetry with meaning, please feel free to use our contact form to get in touch.

Responses

4 comments so far.

1. Kevin Hughes says:

   thanks.

2. Sita Strangling says:

   I've been a victim of plagerism before, and it only took that one time to learn my lesson. People, at the very least, you should mail a copy of your work to yourself... and do not open the envelope. Make sure the piece is dated and signed by yourself. Most of the time, it will hold up in court, especially with a valid postmark on the envelope. And STAY AWAY from sites like www.poetry.com !!! These sites are all scams, and once you publish with them THEY own the copyright to whatever you've published with them. They tell you on their front page that you retain your copyright, but you really have to do research before trusting ANY site that wants to publish your work, especially in a printed book. Always go to google or yahoo and type in "poetry.com scam" or replace "poetry.com" with the name of the site you are questioning. This simple research could have saved me from losing the rights to 2 dozen of my poems.

   :-(

   Writers take your craft seriously. It is yours and yours alone!

   Thanks for the info guys!

3. Bret Weeks says:

   Appreciate the lookout guys, it's unfortunate and troublesome that it is a valid concern but I'll start doing the same for my works - especially the letter idea Sita mentioned. :)

4. Chris Stratton says:

   I have but a single question . . . . if the original poet is able to prove the art is truly his/hers what is to be done to the thief of words?

   Sirhc