I’m not going to get into the ethics of it all; that’s a topic for another post. And I’m not here to start a flame war over situations that have already been discussed at length in other online venues. I want to talk about fear.

The way I see it, there are two ways that idea-stealing can involve fear. First, there’s the writer who’s so afraid that someone will steal his idea that he never shares any of his work. On the other hand, there’s the writer who is so afraid of unknowingly taking someone else’s idea that she never writes anything at all. These are the extremes, but most writer often oscillate between these ideas, sometimes worrying that their original ideas might get stolen, sometimes worrying that the ideas aren’t all that original after all.

Don’t get me wrong, a healthy respect for the intellectual property of others is a good thing. That little nagging fear in the back of our minds–“was that really my idea?”–helps keep most writers on the straight and narrow. But when fear gets out of control–when it leads to paranoia–then it can cause serious problems. Here are some tips to help lessen that fear.

Fear of Having Your Ideas Stolen

I’m a firm believer that the best way of protecting one’s intellectual property is to have LOTS of it. The more ideas you have, the less each individual idea matters so if one is copied or doesn’t work out, the sting won’t hurt as much. I like to have at least 3-5 projects of varying intensity going at the same time. At DIY MFA I hardly ever put all my energy into only one project. There’s usually at least a couple of things in the works: a series or two of articles, at least one eBook and one larger, more long-term project. What can I say, I’m  a polygamist when it comes to writing projects, and my friends and colleagues often joke that I start almost every conversation with: “So, I’ve got this crazy idea…”

But what if you’re more of a serial monogamist when it comes to your writing, completely dedicating yourself to a project and completing it before you embark on something new? When you invest all of your energy on one project at a time, it’s perfectly understandable to be afraid of having your idea stolen before you’re ready to share it. Here are a few tips to help you manage that fear:

1) Challenge yourself to juggle more than one idea at a time.

This point is worth emphasizing. Cover your bases and have a few different projects going in case you have to abandon an idea. Actually, the odds of having an idea stolen are much smaller than the odds of that idea just not working out. Even if you do encounter another book out there eerily like the one you’re working on, the odds of it being theft are also small. Many times, writers or other creative people will work on the same idea independently only to realize late in the game that someone else “scooped” their project.

Regardless of whether something is theft or not, if your idea has already been done and there’s no way you can make your project new and different,  it could still mean abandoning the project altogether. Even if you’re not comfortable working on multiple projects at once, keep ideas for new projects in a notebook or file. It’s useful to have a stash of ideas that you can turn to if the one you’re working is no longer feasible. Of course, giving up a treasured project will always hurt, but if you have other ones on the side, it will hurt a lot less. At the very least, working on something new will distract you from the pain.

2) Document your work.

Heaven forbid you ever have to file a lawsuit over your intellectual property, but if that ever happens, it helps to document different versions of your work with date and time stamps. Emailing drafts of your work to yourself using gmail can help establish a timeline of when you developed an idea. Plus it’s a great way of backing up your work because if you ever need to go back to an early version it’s right there in your email.

3) Be smart about what you share (especially online).

The internet can be a big scary place so be smart about what you share. For instance, while I share a lot of DIY MFA information on this site, I rarely talk about my own fiction writing. The fear of having the idea copied is actually not my main reason for holding back from sharing that work. My bigger concern is that if I talk about projects before they’re done, I’ll suck the life out of them and then never finish. Also, if I decide a project isn’t working, I hate having people asking me: “So, when’s that book coming out?”

Most people in the online writing community are good and generous and would never steal an idea. Still there are a few rotten apples out there so be careful about what you share via the internet. Not only do you have no control over what people do with your tweets or blog posts once you put them out there, but there’s a certain permanence to the internet and once you make something public, it’s really hard to take it back. Also, some publishers and publications consider content that has been posted online as “previously published” so you might make things difficult for yourself if you try to publish that same work later on. There are many good reasons to hold back on sharing some of your work online. Idea theft is only one of them.

Fear of Accidentally Copying an Idea

Let’s face it, there’s a finite number of truly original ideas out there especially when it comes to story-telling. While the execution of an idea might be fresh and new, chances are there’s a nugget buried in there that has been done before. Depending on who you ask, there’s only two (six, twenty) basic plots and every story is derived from those basic story archetypes. Whatever the exact number, one thing is clear: the number of completely original ideas is finite and like it or not, it’s all been done before.

The other problem is that many times, different people might arrive at the same idea completely independent of each other. For instance, the idea for the television was something that several scientists were working on in different labs at the same time and it’s hard to really know who the true inventor is. Other innovations like Tivo or Pets.com were launched but the timing or business model wasn’t right and it was only later that companies were able to launch similar ideas (DVR and Wag.com) that were actually successful.

I for one am constantly terrified that I might unknowingly take someone else’s idea without realizing it. After all, I go to a lot of conferences, I read a lot of books and I talk to a lot of writers. When an idea pops into my head it’s hard to know whether the concept came solely from me or from some other creative input I’ve ingested. Chances are, ideas are a combination of both internal A-Ha! moments and external inspiration. Here are a few safeguards you can implement to help you avoid accidentally taking another person’s idea:

1) Let ideas hibernate before you execute.

I have ideas for new plots and characters several times per day. If I acted on every single one as soon as it popped into my head, I’d never finish anything! Times like this is when I’m glad I have an idea jar (pictured above). I’ll write a concept on a slip of paper and tuck it inside. Then, every few months, I look through the contents of the jar and cull through the ideas. Some of them I can toss out right away because they’re just plain awful. If an idea really resonates with me, I’ll paste it into my notebook and start planning out how I’ll put it into action. The rest of the ideas I just tuck back into the jar and revisit them in a few months.

2) Train yourself to identify your idea’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

If you’re going for something completely new and unique you’re fighting a losing battle because the odds of inventing something completely from scratch is virtually zero. Instead, focus on finding that piece of your idea that is different. In product development and marketing, this is called the USP or Unique Selling Proposition. For example, when I worked in the toy industry, I managed products in the toddler division of a company. The products we were making weren’t all that earth-shattering in terms of concept (puzzles, lacing boards, arts & crafts kits) but what was unique was the target market. At the time there were lots of baby toys and preschool toys, but that 18-month to 3-year age-group didn’t have many options made especially for them. By taking preschool toys and modifying the designs so that they complied with infant and toddler safety standards, we were able to create a line of products that found its niche in the market.

The same is true with your book. OK, so vampires have been done to death and dystopian isn’t all that new, but can you find something in your dystopian vampire novel that makes it completely different? For instance, the Harry Potter books were a new concept, but magic had certainly been done before and so had the good-versus-evil theme. What made those books so engaging were the compelling characters and tightly-woven plots. And let’s face it, while the Twilight saga wasn’t exactly an original concept (vampire love stories have been around since the 19th century), I can see why girls would enjoy reading a book where an ordinary Bella is the object of affection for not one but two sexy boys with superpowers.

Find your idea’s USP and even if it’s been done, you can salvage something from it and give it a new spin.

3) Learn when it’s time to let go.

Some years ago, I had the unfortunate experience of having to abandon an idea I truly cared about and believed in.  If I had not let that project go, it would have brought much grief to me and the other people working on it, but more importantly I would never have learned some important lessons about business, writing and life. Also, had I remained on that project I would never have embarked on DIY MFA and I wouldn’t be where I am now, building a business and writing life that I love. Sometimes–no matter how much it hurts–you just have to let go.

Now go on, write your heart out and remember that without fear there is no courage.

The post Idea-Stealing: How Not to Let Your Fear Stifle Your Creativity appeared first on DIY MFA.

Can I use the name of a deceased person as a character name in my “based on a true story” work of fiction?

Depends on who the dead person is.  If we’re talking about a historical figure who’s long-since deceased (Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Henry VIII) chances are you don’t have an estate of that person who will sue you if you take creative liberties with that character.  If on the other hand, your character is more recently deceased, you have to worry about what the legal world calls “Rights of Publicity,” which falls outside my husband’s area of expertise.

Can you write a fictional story based on factual events and people as a jumping off point?

Certainly!  It’s called historical fiction.  Sure, if you rewrite history defaming certain public figures you might run into trouble with their estates, but if the factual events and people are just a jumping-off point for the rest of the story, you shouldn’t have any problem.  Think, for instance, of the movie Forrest Gump where the protagonist meets several presidents and John Lennon.  He even “helps” Lennon write the lyrics to the song Imagine and teaches Elvis how to dance.  If you’re writing a story that is embedded in a historical time period, it makes sense that people and events of that time would appear in your story.

Is there a disclaimer you need to add if you portray a factual person in a negative light within your fictional story?

The safest bet if you want to portray a factual person in a negative light (especially if you’re taking creative liberties with that person) is to change the name.  If the person is really well-known, chances are readers will pick up the reference.

Can you mention brand names and actual businesses in fiction and other creative works (both as parody and not)? For instance, can you have a character shop at 7-Eleven? Can you make a joke about Lifesavers?

As far as casual mention of brand names in fiction (like having a character order a Diet Coke or listen to an iPod), my understanding is that this is OK.  The main thing you should consider as a writer is whether using certain brand names will date your book.  Some brands have been around for a while and are here to stay so if you mention them, it won’t immediately date your story.  But other brands (particularly as far as technology goes) are constantly changing and mentioning the brand will definitely lock your story into a particular place in time.  If you’re writing a book that takes place in a specific time period, then dating the story can work in your favor but if you want a more timeless feel, you’ll want to watch out for mentioning brands or types of technology that will date your story.

In terms of parody, as we mentioned in the Infringement, Fair Use and Derivative Works post you can  imitate or mention existing stories or brands for humorous effect.  What you need to be careful of is not to defame that brand.  For instance, in the Coming to America  example, the restaurant McDowell’s is a parody of the McDonald’s brand but the humor comes from the fact that the fake brand is actually almost identical to the existing brand and the owner of McDowell’s continues to insist that the brands are totally different.  If, on the other hand, McDowell’s were a strip club that also happened to serve burgers and fries, that could be considered a defamation because it’s taking a family-friendly restaurant and turning it into something quite the opposite.

How does copyright work on the internet? On blogs for example? What is the “copyright” status of a blog or other internet-published piece of writing?

Generally, when you post something on a blog, it’s considered “published.”  This is why it’s important to be careful about what you give away on blogs for free (i.e. posting large chunks of your novel or entire short stories).  At the same time, having published something on your blog does not preclude you from publishing it elsewhere as well, as long as you make it clear to the entity publishing your work that it has already appeared on your blog.

As far as the copyright status of work on a blog, the minute you hit that publish button and your post or story or piece of writing goes live, you’ve got copyright.  And what’s nice about publishing on a blog is that you have a time-stamp and date associated with when your piece was posted so if any question comes up regarding your copyright, you have that record already.  Of course, if you want to sue for damages, you will do better to have actually registered the copyright to your work with the copyright office, but because of the disposable and ephemeral nature of blog posts, it is almost certainly not cost-effective.

Worst case scenario, if someone takes your content and tries to pass it off as their own, you have proof from your blog time-stamp that your content was here first.  You can contact the offending party and just ask them to take the work down from their site.  Public shaming is also an effective tactic.

The post Legally Speaking: Q&A appeared first on DIY MFA.

Law School Clinical Programs

In addition to the resources and links listed below, one great resource where you may be able to find legal information and maybe even get legal advice is through law school clinics.  A lot of law schools offer what they call “clinical programs” where advanced (2nd & 3rd year) law students get hands-on experience working in specific areas of law out in “the field” as it were.  The people who qualify for the help at these clinics get the representation for free.

Also, while the clinics are manned mostly by law students, that can actually work to your advantage because these soon-to-be lawyers are often extremely motivated (nothing like the motivation of grades and course credit).  Of course, while the legwork is done mostly by law students, they ARE overseen by actual lawyers (professors or lawyers volunteering their time), so there would be actual lawyers on hand to oversee your case, if it got to the point where it was necessary.

If you live in an area where there is a university law school nearby, it is worthwhile to check that school’s website and see if they offer any clinical programs for IP (Intellectual Property) Law.

Links and Resources

•  Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts: New York organization dedicated to helping artists with legal issues.  The website has good resources even for those not in New York and there are similar organizations throughout the US. https://www.vlany.org/

•  US Copyright Office: Federal agency tasked with registering US copyrights.  Also good information about US copyright law.  https://www.copyright.gov

•  World Intellectual Property Association: UN agency tasked with developing a balanced and accessible international intellectual property system. It also administers several international treaties related to IP law.  There is good information about IP laws in many countries here. https://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en

•  Cornell Law School’s Copyright portal: more geared to legal questions, but has information accessible to a non-legal audience.  https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/copyright

•  Creative Commons: an organization dedicated to promoting freely available “public domain” licenses. Wikipedia uses Creative Commons licenses. https://creativecommons.org/

•  The Authors Registry: an organization that is a not-for-profit clearinghouse for payments to authors, receiving royalties from organizations and distributing them to U.S. authors. https://www.authorsregistry.org/index.htm

•  The Authors Guild: a membership organization that advocates for author-friendly copyright policies and provides legal advice. https://www.authorsguild.org/

•  CountyOffice.org allows you to find local government offices in your county or state.  https://countyoffice.org/  (Thank you Suzanne for pointing us to this useful resource!)

The post Copyright Resource List appeared first on DIY MFA.

Licensing

In publishing terms, licensing is usually the scenario you find when you publish your work via the traditional route.  You query an agent, the agent “sells” the book to a publisher, you sign an contract and sooner or later your book lands on store shelves.  But the truth is, you’re not actually selling your book to the publisher; you’re granting the publisher certain specific rights, like the right to publish your book in North America, or the UK, or in digital form.  In this case, it’s important to have an agent in your corner to help you negotiate the details of this licensing agreement.  After all, you don’t want to sign away all the rights to your work.  An agent will help you negotiate that all-important contract so you can rest easy.

Note also, that in the case of licensing, usually payment comes in the form of a royalty (a percentage per each book sold) so in order for the author to make money, the book has to sell.  You hear sometimes of authors getting an “advance” but don’t be mistaken… an advance is not “free money.”  The term is short for “advance against royalties” which means that the author is getting some portion of the royalty in advance of the books being sold.  What this means is that in order for the author to receive any additional royalties, the publisher must first sell enough books to make back the advance given to the author (also called “earning out.”)

Another example of licensing is when you publish a short story in a literary magazine.  Most of these magazines offer little or no payment, but they also ask for very little.  Usually these magazines only ask for First North American Rights or First Digital Rights (for an online magazine).  These rights allow the magazine to print the story first, but after that the rights go back to the author.  This means that if you grant a literary magazine only First North American Rights or First Digital Rights, once that magazine has printed your story, you can resubmit it elsewhere or repurpose it.  This happens often when authors publish short stories in magazines but later on will anthologize those stories in a collection.

Work for Hire

In the case of work for hire, we usually see this scenario when a publisher or book packager hires a writer to produce a specific piece of writing.  For instance, if a writer gets hired to ghostwrite a tell-all celebrity memoir, that would be considered work for hire.  Or when a writer is assigned to write book #387 of The Babysitter’s Club that would also be work for hire.  After all, the substance of the work (the ideas and information) would be provided to the author so the author’s primary function is to craft and write the piece.  Another example of work for hire is when an author is a staff writer for a periodical.  Unlike a freelance writer who produces work as an independent contractor the staff writer is an employee, paid a flat fee for the work.  Since the writer is an employee, all the work product created by the author for that publication belongs to the publication.  In other words, the copyright for the work does not belong to the author but to the publisher.

Take-Home Message:

Whether you are licensing your work to the publisher or selling it outright as work for hire, you will most likely have to sign a contract.  Make sure you read the fine-print so you know exactly which rights you are handing over and which rights you get to keep.

The post Licensing vs. Work for Hire appeared first on DIY MFA.

Infringement

When you take someone else’s work or idea and use it as your own.  Fan fiction would often be considered infringement because you’re taking characters that were created by another author.  Sure, you can write it for fun in the privacy of your home, but you won’t be able to sell it.  Note also that just changing a few small details is not enough to make a character or a story your own.  There is an exception to infringement, though, and it’s called “fair use.”

Fair use

What you use when you write an English paper and you need to use quotes in the paper.  You’re not paying the author you’re quoting for the right to use his or her words, but because you’re only using a short snippet and you’re using it for academic purposes, it’s OK.  Just make sure you attribute the quotes properly when you use them.

There is another case where fair use comes into play and that’s with humor.  If you’re imitating an existing story or brand but are doing so as a parody, you may be able to claim “fair use.”  One example is the imitation of McDonald’s brand in the movie Coming to America.  The imitation restaurant is called McDowell’s and it serves Big Mics and Chicken Nukkets.  In this case, the very similarities between the real and imitation brands is what’s being played for laughs.*

Derivative Works

Any works derived from the original work.  In other words, if you own an existing work, you also retain rights to follow-on works in both that medium and other media.

For instance, suppose you own the rights to a novel.  You will also retain rights to sequel novels, plays, films scripts and films, audio books and translations of the original (provided you don’t give these rights away).  This is one place where it can be invaluable to have an agent in your corner.  Your agent will help you make smart negotiations and keep you from giving away all these rights when you sign a contract.

Take-home message:

1) Don’t use pieces of work you don’t have rights to, unless you’re certain that you’re covered by fair use (i.e. like when writing an English paper).

2) Have any doubts as to which rights you should hold onto?  Get an agent.

*In this example, McDowell’s is an example of fair use with regard to a trademark, but fair use operates similarly with copyright as well.

The post Infringement, Fair Use, and Derivative Works appeared first on DIY MFA.

1) Write what you love, not what the market “wants.”

I used to work in the toy industry and it always boggled my mind that we had to predict what kids would “want” not now but a year from now. We could spend a whole year developing a product only to discover at the end of it all that the trend was over. The same is true for writing. If you’re working on your project because the genre or topic are a big hit now and you want to jump on the bandwagon, chances are you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re working on this book because you love the subject and the characters, then no matter what happens, it’s win-win.

2) Context isn’t something to be afraid of. Think of it as a “safety net.”

In the product development world, companies love to create extensions of popular product lines. After all, a good chunk of the development legwork has already been done in the first version, customers recognize the brand and there’s already a built-in market for it.
Think of books that came before yours as a similar “safety net” to your project. Study the books–both the successful ones and the ones that are less so–and think about what made them work or not work. Think about what you can do to differentiate your project from what has come before, but still keep it within the existing context.

3) Find partners in crime.

One of my favorite things to do is go to conferences. I love meeting other writers, learning about the craft and hearing new information about the business. The way I see it, you never know who you’ll meet at one of these events. It could be a new critique partner or beta reader, it could be someone you’ll collaborate with some day, it could be a future mentor or someone you might mentor yourself. The key is to be open to possibilities. These partners in crime may prove to be invaluable in helping you develop an idea from a vague, amorphous blob into a successful project.
And unlike other recourses, ideas are not consumed when shared. In fact they multiply. If you share your idea with a friend and they share an idea with you, now you both have two ideas. Plus, the combination of your two ideas may be another ideas in itself.

4) The idea is not the book.

In his memoir, Lessons From a Lifetime of Writing, David Morrell talks about the distinction between the idea and execution. Every time I start getting down about how un-unique my ideas are, I reread his chapter on plot where he discusses this subject. His main point is this: sure, an idea might be shiny and new, but an idea does not make a book unique. What makes a book unique is how the writer implements the idea.

Take the Harry Potter series–many people marvel at J.K. Rowling’s originality. “How did she come up with such a unique idea?” they wonder. As if all it takes to create a fantastic book (or series of books) is one extraordinary idea. Because when you have the fun flashy idea then the book just writes itself. Yeah right. If you boil down Harry Potter to it’s basic idea, it’s: Normal boy goes to a magic school. Technically that is the same basic idea for The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

And how about Dracula vs. Twilight: Boy meets girl. Boy obsesses over girl. Turns out boy’s a vampire.

Or Antz vs. A Bug’s Life: Computer-animated ants go on a mission to save their ant community from bad-guy bugs. The wimpiest ant of them all becomes the unlikely hero in the story.

These stories are what they are because the author wrote them. Your same concept in the hands of any other writer would turn out to be completely different.

5) Ideas are like subways: any minute now there will be another one.

When I worked in toy development, our department had a attitude that boiled down to this: “If competitors want to steal our idea, let them. We’ll have an even better idea in five minutes anyway.” The minute you think of your idea as one link in a long chain of great ideas, then that one idea doesn’t seem all that ground-breaking anymore.

Oftentimes we coddle and protect our ideas, like Gollum whispering “my precioussss.” But if we treat our ideas like something priceless, we run the risk of getting too attached and taking the project too seriously. Have confidence that another better idea is always just a brainstorm away and that even if someone does “borrow” your concept, they’ll never be able to execute it like you will.

Take-home message:

As you’ll learn in the next post, it’s not the idea that matters anyway. What matters is the expression of the idea. Copyright won’t help protect your idea, it protects your artistic expression. So your best bet is not to get too attached to any one idea but remember that it’s the way you write the idea that counts.

Now go out there and do something wild and crazy and unique!

The post How to Find Your Unique Ideas appeared first on DIY MFA.

Patents:

Protect an invention by preventing others from copying a specific mechanism or process.

Copyrights:

Protect artistic expression by preventing others from copying the substance of an artistic work.

Trademarks:

Protect brand names, marks and symbols.

Trade Secrets:

Protect secrets–as long as you don’t tell the secret, it stays protected.

For authors, the most relevant area of IP law is copyright and in this post we cover all the basic things you need to know about it.

What is copyright?

Copyright is a property right which insures that someone else will not take your artistic expression and claim it as their own.

What does copyright cover?

Copyright covers various forms of artistic expression.  This does not mean that copyright will protect the idea for that artistic expression.  Rather, copyright covers the actual expression of the work.

Artistic expression includes music (both composition and recordings), dramatic works (plays, dance, opera), visual arts (painting, sculpture, illustration), and film/TV.  Of course, the most relevant category for writers is written expression, which is also covered by copyright.

Egged: Perhaps copyright reform activits were responsible?

How long does coverage last?

This is a tricky question because the law changes frequently.  (The running legal joke is that length of copyright follows the “Mickey Mouse rule” in that coverage is extended continually so that the lovable cartoon mouse will always be copyrighted.)  A more specific answer can be found in the FAQ section of the U.S. Copyright Office website.

How do you get a copyright?

The minute you write that last sentence and put down your pen, your work has gained certain rights under the copyright laws.  This is why you don’t need to tell agents or editors that your work is copyrighted because they already know that.  If you wrote it down, it’s already got some copyright coverage.  Caveat: while ownership of the copyright is automatic, you may not be able to collect all the damages to which you’re entitled unless you register the copyright.

How do you register a copyright?

You can register with the U.S. Copyright Office.  Registering preserves some rights that you might not otherwise get, such as the right to sue for statutory damages (a fixed amount per work) and attorney’s fees.

Does this mean that if you do all these steps and someone copies your work, the Copyright Police will go after them?

Sorry, but that’s not how it works.   First of all, there isn’t really a copyright police (yes the FBI deals with copyright matters, but usually in the case of large scale criminal infringement) and the copyright office doesn’t enforce copyrights.

You’re probably wondering what the point of copyright is if it isn’t enforced.  What copyright means is if someone copies your work, you can take them to court and sue for damages and/or get an injunction.  (An injunction means that the offending party must stop doing what they are doing: i.e. stop copying or using your work without permission.)

Take-home Message:

Copyright is a property right to your work which you own automatically.  By registering it, you give yourself evidence of having created that work.  If someone copies your work, you can sue for damages or get them to stop their infringement.

Disclaimer:

I’m not a lawyer. These posts should in no way be considered legal advice. If you find yourself in need of specific legal help, look for an attourney who specializes in copyright law. The purpose of these posts is to share some of the basic information on copyright so when you do seek advice from a lawyer, you can ask smart questions.

The post What is Copyright and What Does it Do? appeared first on DIY MFA.