Copyright Infringement?

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Georgia

Our church-affiliated organization wishes, as a fund-development effort, to publish a book of "holy humor" based on stories and jokes submitted by members of the organization. We do not know the original sources of the submissions, but it is likely some are word-of-mouth while others may have been taken from published sources. Question: Are we within our rights to publish the book solely on the basis of the submissions?

You can certainly publish such a book.

If it turns out that any of the jokes are "copyrighted," remember that it will be up to the person claiming infringement to prove that they own the copyright AND that they have suffered damages because of your publication.

Just to protect yourself, once you have compiled all of the jokes, you could search the U.S. Copyright office's webpage to see if any of the jokes happen to be covered by a registered copyright (unlikely unless you are stealing George Carlin's or Jerry Seinfeld's work). If a particular joke is not registered, then, chances are, you have nothing to worry about. One caveat -- if a particular joke is part of a larger work owned by a famous comic, you are probably better off not using it, just to protect yourself from any potential hassle down the road.

If you are really paranoid, sit down with a local attorney who has experience in copyright law and run it by him.

As a writer, I have to tell you that I'd be very upset if you published my work in your book without my permission, and I might seek an attorney for copyright infringement. You don't have the right to publish someone else's material just because you don't know who wrote it. If someone gave me that excuse, it wouldn't appease me one bit.

Many people have stolen my work and passed it around and published it on the net. Sometimes they give me credit--sometimes they don't. And when they pass it around without author attribution, it eventually ends up published under the dreaded "anonymous" or "author unknown" category. Then people think that the work is public domain and that they can use it or publish it however they want.

I'm not an attorney, but morally speaking, I suggest that you make every effort to find out who wrote that material before you publish it, because I can guarantee you that some author out there owns the rights to it.

This is a REAAAAAALLLLLLY old thread, so I doubt the OP is still listening...

As a writer, I have to tell you that I'd be very upset if you published my work in your book without my permission, and I might seek an attorney for copyright infringement.

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Fair enough. But without a REGISTERED copyright, if you want to sue in court, you have to BOTH prove that you actually "own" the copyright and are therefore entitled to enforce it, AND that you have "actual" damages -- provable amounts of money out-of-pocket because of the infringing activity.

You don't have the right to publish someone else's material just because you don't know who wrote it. If someone gave me that excuse, it wouldn't appease me one bit.

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Agreed. And copyright infringement is sort of a "strict liability" type of offense, in that even innocent infringers can be held liable. HOWEVER, there is NO duty for someone to exhaustively search to determine whether or not a particular piece of work is copyrighed. This is why the potential remedies are MUCH more severe for infringing a registered copyright than for infringing a nonregistered copyright -- if a copyright is registered, then everyone is considered "on notice" that the work is copyrighted, and therefore could be subject to higher penalties.

If there is no registered copyright, it is not easy (or sometimes even possible) to determine whether a work is still copyrighted without an exhaustive search (at least until they get sued). Therefore, it would be unfair to people to make them subject to pretty serious penalties if they had no efficient way determining whether or not they were infringing.

So, I'm not advocating infringement here -- but I am saying that by checking the copyright office, they are doinf pretty much all they can do, reasonably speaking.

If you are an author and would be THAT upset that someone is stealing your work, then you have no excuse for not registering your copyrights.

Good work.

Thank you, sir.