Poetry Plagearism (sp?) Question

6 replies
Not sure if I spelled that right lol...but anyway, I wanted to create a blog where I post my poetry too. I have over 50 some personally unique poems that I've made myself and I DO NOT want them copied or stolen or plagearized in any way unless it goes back to giving me credit. I'm going to look into a way turn them into some form of ebook or something or other and sell them at a fair price but I'm still concerned that people may copy them and claim them as their own (who knows).

So my question is, is there anything I can do or should do to enforce some sort of something? Would a privacy policy or disclaimer be sufficient for this purpose or should I go as far as to somehow disable right click copy...orrr...anything?

I really don't know as I've never done this before but let me know what you think and it would be most appreciated

Thanks!
#plagearism #poetry #question
  • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
    Check for a Creative Commons license. There must be one that suits your needs

    Alex
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  • Profile picture of the author xInd
    You can protect your content with many different methods. We use custom coding to block things like right clicking or saving the page... Scripts like DL Guard or wordpress plugins like S2Member...

    There are several others out there as well.
    We also provide assistance with product development and deployment. Feel free to add me as a friend and hit me up for a free consultation.
    -Mike.
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    • Profile picture of the author toomanytoys
      Not to sound overly pessimistic, but if you don't want them plagiarized or copied without your permission, don't publish them.

      I don't mean that to sound harsh. Certainly, there are laws that protect against such things...technically speaking. If someone were to profit from your work, then it would be worth pursuing action if need be. But if someone were to just copy it and say, "Hey, look at this poem I wrote," it would be hard to stop them (again, unless they were profiting from your work). Even then, you'd have to go through laborious efforts to stop them.

      If someone were to claim your work as their own for an academic market, though, plagiarism checkers such as Turnitin.com would recognize you as the original source.

      As far as selling them, it's hard enough to sell poetry to the masses if you're an established poet such as Rita Dove or Mark Strand. Again, I'm not trying to discourage you. It just might not be worth the effort.

      But I'd just start your blog and make sure you've got a clear statement of copyright. Do it because you want to share your voice. If people find you and there's a demand for your work, satisfy it. Rather than an eBook, however, if there's sufficient demand for your work, opt for a self-published book through Lulu.com. You can make it much more desirable with an attractive cover, typography, and the like. Poetry just doesn't seem well-suited for an eBook.

      A course on how to write poetry, however? That's a different story.

      Best of luck with your efforts!
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  • Profile picture of the author Dan Axelrod
    I go to a creative writing group, and what I tell the new writers is "You're more likely to hide your work from the right person than show it to the wrong person."

    Don't sweat the plagiarism thing too much. It's better you get your stuff out there so someone sees your talent. If you have your name under the title of every poem, (such as "Berry Springs by Kathy Gilman") few people will be jackass enough to copy and paste it while deleting your name. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen that happen.

    Just put yourself out there.

    --Dan
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  • Profile picture of the author Brekat23
    Thanks everyone! You all gave me some really great responses, insight, and advice and your all amazing! I'm going to bookmark my thread and refer to it as I go along but I've learned alot just from asking - I love this forum!

    Thanks again!
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  • Profile picture of the author Scott Murdaugh
    I'm glad you got some answers...

    But just to clarify this is a "copywriting forum"... People who write sales material.
    This seems to be a "copyright" question. Not what the forum is about.

    -Scott
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