One thing most of us new writers who post on the web worry about is copyright. We worry that someone will steal our story.

We go to a lot of trouble to ensure that our copyright is protected; sometimes we even go to extremes. But are we protecting the right thing?

Copyright protection varies from country to country, but many countries have similar laws, and most are parties to the Berne Convention. Search on “copyright” on the web and it will direct you to the appropriate government department for your country. Effectively, your work is copyright from the moment you create it, and most times you don’t have to do anything more

Plagiarism appears to be rife on the internet, but the plagiarism is more for non-fiction, rather than fiction. This blog entry, for example, is more likely to be ripped off than our novel, Barrain, which is posted here. Many times the theft is unintentional, due more to ignorance than to deliberate wrongdoing. We do what we can with copyright notices and the like, but in the end we have to rely on people’s honesty

It’s a little like locking your car when you leave. You lock the car to deter the opportune burglars, but you will not stop the professional car thieves.

Theft of writing does happen, although it’s not as common in fiction as most of us believe.

What we—the new writers, often don’t realise—is that we are really protecting the wrong thing. Once a story is written, it is automatically copyright. We may have to go to court to prove that someone has stolen our story, but we own the rights to it.

Terry Rossio, from WordPlay wrote a great article about this very subject. It’s called Steal This Column. In it, he talks about meeting a writer who showed him an old version of a script.

“I’m curious,” I said uncertainly, “why I’ve just been given the bad version.”
He gave me a sly look. “I really don’t know anything about you. If you decide to steal this, then at least I know you’re stealing the version that sucks.”
Terry Rossio, Steal This Column

The writer also talked about the next great script that he was going to write, a murder mystery plot involving identical triplets. As Terry says,

The screenwriter who gave me the ‘bad’ version of his script to read was making a classic error. He got it exactly wrong. He was being overly protective of his screenplay — and openly forthcoming with his story ideas. Remember his pitch, the murder-mystery involving identical triplets? According to him, that was his next project, his next best idea. It also happened to be unregistered, unprotected and undocumented. There is no record of our meeting on it. And he didn’t even follow up with a letter stating, “Thank you for allowing me to present my concept concerning the triplets murder mystery.”
This suspicious fellow left his best idea just sitting there, ready for the taking.
As a writer, you should know that your concepts are far more vulnerable than your screenplay. Because really, nobody in Hollywood steals screenplays anyway. It’s usually easier to just buy the damn thing.
Terry Rossio, Steal This Column

As Lewis Purdue and Michael Baigent and others have found with the Da Vinci Code, simply having the same idea does not automatically mean your work is the only one that should stand on the subject. There is no copyright on ideas. Two or more people can write about the same thing (in the case of the Da Vinci Code and the other books it was Jesus and Mary having a child) and they do not infringe the copyright of each other.

People are far less likely to steal a story than they are to steal an idea.

Remember, there is no copyright on ideas.