by James Hutchings
Many writers, whether published or just starting out, are very nervous that someone else will steal their work, whether that be another writer using their ideas in their own stories, or someone making pirated copies of their books.
When I put out a collection of my writing, I specifically gave permission for anyone at all to copy my ideas, or even to cut and paste whole stories. I also contacted the Pirate Party, a worldwide network that wants to lessen copyright, and told them that I was giving anyone permission to put my ebook on file-sharing sites. In this post I hope to show why I went against common wisdom.
Creative Commons
I used a free service called Creative Commons. Creative Commons is useful for people who want to give the general public permission to use their work, but with restrictions. In my case I didn’t mind people using my work for non-profit purposes, such as posting on a blog, but I didn’t want to allow anyone to make money off it. Similarly I wanted anyone who used it to give me credit. I could have just listed these things myself. However I’m not a lawyer, and perhaps I would have worded it wrong so that someone could twist what I said to do more than I meant. Also I could have been unclear about what I was allowing and what I wasn’t allowing. Sure, someone could email me and ask, but the whole purpose of having a written statement is so that people don’t have to ask.
Creative Commons has a series of different licenses, which give permission to do different things. They’re all legally ‘tight’, and they’re all summarized in plain language. So all you have to do is go to their site and answer a series of questions, to get to the license that does what you want. In my case I used the Attribution Non-Commercial License.
Why?
That’s what I did. But why? Common sense would suggest that I’m giving something away for free that I could be selling. However I believe that, in the long run, I’ll be better off. The main reason is that I’ve seen how many people are, like me, trying to get their writing out there. Go to Smashwords and have a look at the latest ebooks. Then refresh the page ten minutes later, and you’ll probably see a whole new lot. The problem that new writers face isn’t that people want to steal your work; it’s getting anyone to show an interest in your work at all. If someone passes on a pirated copy of my work, it might get to someone who’s prepared to buy it – and that someone would probably have never heard of me otherwise. Even if they don’t want to pay for what they read, I might come out with something else in the future, and perhaps paying 99c for it will be easier than hunting it down on a file-sharing site.
Science fiction writer Andrew Burt tells the story of someone who disliked his book, and to get back at him decided to put a copy on a file-sharing site. The effect was that he got a small ‘spike’ in sales immediately afterwards.
I also have some less selfish motives. Many people would assume that the purpose of copyright is to protect authors and creators. Leaving aside the fact that someone else often ends up with the rights (how many Disney shareholders created any of the Disney characters? How many shareholders in Microsoft have ever written a line of code?), that doesn’t seem to have been the intention in the past. The US Constitution says that Congress has the power “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Note that protecting ‘intellectual property’ isn’t mentioned. The authors of the Constitution seemed to see the point as getting ideas out there where people can use them: almost the exact opposite of keeping them ‘safe’ and ‘protected’.
The original idea of copyright seems to have been a sort of deal: you have an idea, and we want you to get it out into the world where it will do some good. To encourage you to do that, we’ll give you a monopoly on its use for a limited time. After that, anybody can use it (it will enter the ‘public domain’).
A lot of people don’t know that copyright used to give a lot less protection than it does now, especially in the United States. In the US, it used to be that works were copyrighted for a maximum of 56 years. Today copyright in the US can last for over 100 years. In fact Congress keeps extending the time. In practice, they’re acting as if they never want ideas to go into the public domain.
This is great for the owners of ‘intellectual property’. But it’s hard to see how this “promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” or how forever is a “limited time.” In a sense it’s a theft from the public. Anyone who publishes work has accepted the deal that the law offers, of a limited monopoly in return for making their idea known. Congress has been giving them more and more extensions on that monopoly, but doesn’t require them to do anything to earn it.
It probably doesn’t matter that much that Disney still owns Mickey Mouse, or that Lord of the Rings is still under copyright. But remember that these laws don’t just apply to the arts. Similar laws apply to science as well. So a life-saving invention could be going unused, because its owner wants too much money for it, or because it’s tied up in court while two companies fight about who owns it.
Conclusion
I’m far from an expert on either the law or the publishing industry. However I hope that I’ve given you, especially those of you who might be thinking about publishing some writing, a different take on the whole issue of whether authors should worry about their ideas being stolen. At least I hope I’ve shown you that there’s a different way of thinking about it, and that that way doesn’t require you to just give up on making money; in fact that it might be more profitable as well as better for society.
*****
James Hutchings lives in Melbourne, Australia. He fights crime as Poetic Justice, but his day job is acting. You might know him by his stage-name ‘Brad Pitt.’ He specializes in short fantasy fiction. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, fiction365 and Enchanted Conversation among other markets. His ebook collection The New Death and others is now available from Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. He blogs daily at Teleleli.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License.
I never thought of it this way. That’s kind of brilliant.
Elizabeth – Thanks for hosting James.
James – Thanks for explaining your choice to use Creative Commons. You outline your reasons very clearly and you make some well-taken points. Definitely “food for thought.”
An interesting post for me, James. I’ve used Creative Commons…but only for using blog photography, etc. As a commercial writer, you’ve definitely given me something to think about. I allow my posts to be reproduced all the time, although I haven’t gone through CC.
I definitely learned something today! Very interesting – thanks for the info :)
I wasn’t sure what Creative Commons meant – now I know!
I know a lot of photographers who allow Creative Commons on their work, but I’ve never allowed it on mine.
As far as writing, I believe all of the articles I’ve submitted to places like ezines.com and articlecity.com fall under that license.
Thanks for the kind feedback everyone. And thanks to Elizabeth for hosting my article.
I’ve pasted one of my articles below on why your ideas about long copyright and creativity really aren’t true.
CREATIVITY AND COPYRIGHT
One of the common reasons copyright foes give for the evils of long copyright or any form of copyright is that it stifles creativity.
Is this true?
My own feeling is that it doesn’t, particularly in fiction.
WHAT COPYRIGHT DOES AND DOESN’T COVER
Many don’t understand what copyright covers. They think the ideas within a story are copyrighted. They aren’t. Anyone can write a story about angst-filled vampires and the girls who love them, and many have, but if you write and sell a vampire story where the vampires glitter, the main characters are Edward and Belle, and the plot and setting are very similar to the TWILIGHT series, you can expect a call from Stephenie Meyer’s lawyers.
Any story or idea from other authors or sources can be used by an author as long as she makes the idea her own with her own characters, setting, and plot. I have read a CAPTAIN BLOOD retelling as an historical romance, a Klingons-in-love STAR TREK inspired futuristic romance, and a paranormal romance that billed itself as HARRY POTTER for grownups. None of these authors were sued for copyright infringement because they added enough of their own ideas to create something different.
A GOOD IDEA ISN’T HARD TO FIND
Those who aren’t creative believe that it’s hard coming up with new ideas for stories. If you ask any author, she’ll tell you that new ideas aren’t the problem; the problem is having enough time to use all those wonderful ideas to write books. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but writing time is priceless.
DO BOOKS OUT OF COPYRIGHT ENRICH OUR CULTURE BY INSPIRING AUTHORS?
But what of those novels and stories which have gone out of copyright? Have they enriched the culture by spawning sequels that will be remembered forever?
I’ve read, among many others, sequels to THE SCARLET LETTER, DOCTOR JEKYL AND MR. HYDE, several of Jane Austin’s novels, MOBY DICK, and none were worthy literary successors, won awards, or remained in print more than a few years.
The only novel I could think of that has been a sequel/prequel and a literary success, as well as having more than a few months of fame, is WICKED by Gregory Maguire which is about the Wicked Witch in THE WIZARD OF OZ.
The only true value most of these sequel books have, from a publisher and author’s perspective, is as a marketing hook so more books are sold.
If any of the sequel novels I’ve read didn’t have that instant recognition of THE SCARLET LETTER from the villain’s perspective or DR. JEKYL from the maid’s perspective, they probably wouldn’t have been published, and they certainly wouldn’t have had as many people buying them.
I know I will read any book that has Sherlock Holmes as a character even though most are poorly written and are certainly no compliment to Arthur Conan Doyle. If that same book was about a Victorian detective, I doubt I would read it, and unless it was by an established author, few publishers would publish it.
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF SHORTENING COPYRIGHT?
So, what is the value of shortening copyright? None that I see except for free books, and you can read most books for free from the library.
Society almost never profits from a book out of copyright, and most of those who write the sequels create inferior books which have famous marketing hooks rather than literary value.
To read my articles on various issue on copyright go to
http://mbyerly.blogspot.com/search/label/copyright
My articles include:
“Disney and Copyright,” Is it really the public’s best interest for Disney’s old cartoons to go into public domain?
“A Reader’s Guide to Copyright,” A simple explanation of what copyright is and what the reader needs to know.
“The First Sale Doctrine and Ebooks,” Is it legal to resell or share an ebook?
“The Death of Copyright,” What would happen if copyright was abolished as some copyright opponents desire?
This is a really inspirational post. Thanks for sharing.
http://www.modernworld4.blogspot.com
@Marilynn:
The album of ‘War of the Worlds’.
I win.
I’ve read, loved, and reviewed Brad’s — I mean JAMES’ — book THE NEW DEATH and I recommend it highly! Love the way he thinks. :)
Thanks for having him as a guest, Elizabeth. :)
Marian Allen
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes
Thanks James; I didn’t know any of this, but I find it quite interesting.
…….dhole
Well said, James. I’ve been navigating some of the same ideas and I think you’ve laid it out very clearly.
I’ve made my novel “Green Comet” available under a Creative Commons license as well, although I’ve used CC-BY-SA, Attribution and ShareAlike. I don’t mind if someone uses it for commercial purposes.
Thanks and good luck.
Jim Bowering
Thanks to everyone for weighing in…and thanks especially to Marilynn for offering us a counterpoint to the discussion. Lots of food for thought as we all navigate industry changes.
Awosome text! I agree with all! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing, James! I had never header of Creative Commons before, but it’s definitely something that we aspiring writers should consider when we put out our work.