The dust settled over the dust that had already settled over this one. That's deliberate. I didn't feel like jumping in feet-first and head very far behind the action when the story crashed into the wild. Here's the long and the short of it...
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I wish more authors would read copyright law and cast a glance over trade mark law when deciding to embark on the stormy journey of turning themselves into authors.
Do you want to be a writer? Read the copyright law covering your jurisdiction. Check out the law in other countries where your work might wash ashore.
I've been involved in copyright issues as a matter of routine. Occasionally, I've brushed up against copyright's industrious cousin, trade mark law.
And I've resolved all the issues without recourse to a single court battle.
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Before I chased after publishing deals, I made a point of reading copyright law. Scandalous, I know. To think that I'd go and check up on the primary piece of legislation governing the industry I wished to operate in. Yes, BEFORE I sent a manuscript off anywhere.
What the red wet fuck was I thinking?
I was thinking...I don't want to be sued over anything, ever. But I definitely don't want to be sued over something that I can easily bring under control - behaviour relating to copyright.
And that's my behaviour covering my own copyright material as well as my responses to all the other stuff by everyone else and the kitchen sink, too.
The main copyright law I work under is the 1988 act, amended down the years. But I've looked at the law in other countries and from other time-frames.
There's nothing in there, or in any of the trade mark acts, letting you smash your stamp down on a generic word like, oh, say, why not choose one at random...the word...
COCKY.
This sort of nonsense didn't work for the (far from) Fine brothers when they attempted to stamp a trade mark on (PEOPLE) REACT TO videos, and it didn't do Faleena Hopkins any good when she tried her land-grab on the real estate known as the word COCKY.
You can't make money from putting my work out as your own. I will Liam Neeson your buttocks. Just take out the reference to daughter in that scene and put the phrase my writing there, instead. Copyright law is there for me.
But as Robert De Niro insists, there's a flip-side to that coin. I can't charge rent from the entire world and half the moon just by grabbing a trade mark to the word COCKY.
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If you register a trade mark, don't make a mess of it before you start. The money you spend washes away in the rain of your own tears.
Not the tears of your lawyers - the legal eagles are paid promptly, after all.
If you think you've come up with a property that you should be charging everyone rent on, ask yourself this important question: did you bother to read and really attempt to understand the law?
Even then, professional legal advice is recommended thrice-over.
Authors should stick to writing stories, and not have endless stories written about their conduct. We all learn that the hard way. Some of those scribblers learn it harder than the rest of us, it seems.
This purple-faced incident was another of those writerly things boiling away over in the world of the romance books. I list a few romance authors in my group of writer friends, and they rolled their eyes so hard at Faleena's moment of madness that the world almost tremored.
That tells you everything. And so...
I don't have anything left to say about Faleena Hopkins and her land-grab over the word COCKY.
Crank up your search engine and wade into the mire as deep as you dare. Plenty of people are out there in swamp-boats, and they've mapped the hazards in detail.
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Read copyright law. When required, read it again. Those acts are amended, after all. Not to the extent that we, as writers, get to camp out over words...waiting for flies to run into the webs we've set up. Hell, no.
Cast a glance over trade mark law, too.
I've said it before. Avoid litigation. Instead, create. But I should add...avoid grabbing a word for your own evil purposes. The world will mock you for being too...
Greedy.
Come on. You didn't think I was going to end with the word cocky...
;)
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