Hi, Mary,

I don't know how I missed this forum because plagiarism is something that I have had to defend myself against on many occasions.

The simple fact is that you do not need to register a copyright -  that the work is yours and original is sufficient. It helps if you can prove ownership of the intellectual property and posting a certified copy to yourself and retaining the delivered mail, unopened, is by far the easiest way to create proof if it is ever needed.

Because my style of writing is unique, as is the style of virtually anybody who produces written work, it has been possible for me, in the past, to have literary assessments of plagiarised works to show that the construction of sentences and paragraphs is identifiable as my work - even in cases where a thesaurus has been used to replace key words.

If a work is not in the public domain, ie it is 50 years after publication (in the UK), it may not be copied, in whole or in part. Some authors will turn a blind eye if a credit is given for the work and a request is made before use of the work is made.

The Old Coot  

 

Arthur, You are right about style of writing cannot be copied. I have seen times when a person claims to have written something and the pattern of writing does not add up. Writing text to me is just like pattern of speech, imitate and it will be detected. As for copying any of my work. That wouldn't bother me as much as when the person tries to claim they have written it. To say, here is something interesting I found is different than here is something I want to share with you, with no statement telling whether they wrote it or not. Thanks for stopping in with your wisdom.