February 21st, 2012 at 3:45PM
asker

ohhellyes-imanervouswreck asked: About the guy worried that his stories weren't unique, I was taught at uni that copyright laws can be insanely restrictive these days especially with 'intellectual property' (usually publishing corporations or deceased authors relatives trying to make more money.) Apparently if they can prove that you possibly came into contact with the original text then they can build a case that you subconciously copied it and are in violation. It can be crazy especially when there's money to be made...

If that was actually happening a lot, yes it would be crazy. But apart from two cases of stupid/evil/crazy* people suing J. K. Rowling, both of which cases were thrown out of court and thrown out hard (and both of which cost the people who were suing a LOT of money), I don’t know of any cases in which people have tried it. And I try and keep up on copyright-based news.

You can’t copyright an idea. You can only copyright the specific expression of an idea.

Which is to say, I know people who have had books plagiarised, but their books were actually plagiarised - someone went through taking big chunks of their words and only changing the names of the characters. The people who did it got into trouble and their books have never been seen again. Also, they’ve become unpublishable.

Which is to say, without wishing to cast aspersions on your teachers, if ever you are a successful enough author that stupid-crazy-evil* people try and come after you for a slice of your insanely successful series of books, you can worry about it then. In the meantime, you are better off worrying about being struck by lightning, or the time you are losing messing around on the internet.

* your call

  1. sarahalyse said: It happens more often with music, but most cases I have heard about were either thrown out of court or decided in favor of the person being sued.
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