Intellectual Property and it's legalities

[marks]

I just came across a website which in it's legal disclaimers effectively stated that anything you sent them by post or email, they would immediately gain the sole and unequivical IP rights to.

Now, if that was me, attaching say a piece of fanfiction because I wanted some feedback on it - and it subsequently appeared in their monthly magazine : I would not be able to do anything at all about it.

Personally I think this is just stupid and a prime example of the capitalist nature of the world we live in, and that the lawyers who wrote that have some screwed up morals.

Discuss.

[slayera]

If they use it they have to pay you or get your permisson to print it. It's still your work. You never signed any contract so I am not sure how binding that is. Probably varies from state to state.

Anyways, I would write them to understand what that means EXACTLY and talk to your lawyer.

I think alot of it is just in case they lose your shit they're not responable for sending it back or something like that.

[Dead-Inside]

Even better yet; If I were to submit something to the states they have no legal rights to claim it whatever their disclaimer says. My law goes above theirs.

I also don't have this problem in Sweden. It's all a bit different. (Just like firearms not being owned by everyone)

[Caste]

You'd have to get a copyright on your work first
you could probably trick them and sue them this way. Copyright the work, send it to them, and when they take control of it and post them, sue them for not handing over royalties.

[dragonfliet]

Without the link to the site to understand the context, what this sounds like is: If you send them an email, they retain the rights to print it without your permision as well as reprint it, etc. on their site.

What this means is, should they somehow publish a book of reader letters, etc., they retain the right to do so without obtaining the individual permision of the people that sent in the response. It's a pretty standard practice for things like that.

As for publishing a piece of your fiction, it depends. If you send a piece of fiction in, there can, in fact be an agreement that you give up the rights to the piece in exchange for being published. Look at a disney movie for example, the writer doesn't retain the rights to that movie, nor the director, but the studio does. Something like that though would be quite a big hassel and would probably require a signed agreement rather that just a disclaimer for it to be binding.

I'm 99% sure this is all just a misunderstanding, so in that case, there are some possibilities. What website are your reffering to and where is this disclaimer on the site?

~Jason