How Copyright Works

#1
As some of you have noticed, there's a large banner advertising a litRPG story on the home page of RRL, which is supposedly the best one I've ever read (Lion's Quest - Undefeated). Out of curiosity, I decided to give it a look.

After clicking on it, I went to the first chapter.

The first thing I saw was a note from the author, which has something like this: Copyright © 2016 by Michael-Scott Earle.

Now, that got me curious. I remember reading somewhere that the moment you have written something, be it in a word processor or any other sort of platform, you'll immediately own it. In other words, you have copyright of it.

However, I'm not sure whether or not that piece of information is true or false. Then I also have to consider that this is a website for reading novels online, which further complicated my train of thought....

Thus, I ask you, O Knowledgeable Ones, how does Copyright actually work on RRL? Can anyone write this: Copyright © 2016 by Michael-Scott Earle (Of course, with the different name and maybe date) on their novels? Or is there a proper procedure one must go through in order to officialize their copyright over something? 

And if a certain procedure is indeed required, can someone guide me to where one is supposed to do it? Or at least provide me with some instructions.

RE: How Copyright Works

#2
This article explains it better than I do.

Another type of licensing is Creative Commons, which you'll often see on places like Deviant Art and other art websites.

Note: When you're publishing or self-publishing a book, one of the primary things that you include in your front matter is copyright info. Sometimes it's just for the story itself but often you put artist info and such here too--it depends on whether or not you bought the rights to the work from your artist or not.
Looking for stuff to read? Click below to navigate to my stories.

https://i.imgur.com/r6iTizF.jpg

Re: How Copyright Works

#5
The easy answer is, the instant you create any form of media you own the copyright, even without writing, "Copyright Ralen 2055." The more work required answer is that it's better to register copyright with the government. If you don't register it then the burden of proving it's your work relies on your shoulders. https://www.copyright.gov/registration/ This is just for the US. The majority of countries in the world have something similar and share copyright treaties with one another, so you're pretty much good no matter what country you register it in.

Re: How Copyright Works

#6
Well, I’ll start off with: I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. 

As soon as you write something, the copyright is yours. The reason why people often put copyright 20xx is to clarify for those who don’t know about copyright that this work is under copyright, but also from which year, since the copyright spans for 70 years after the author’s death/after its creation (depending on country and other stuff). Meaning, if you die, your spouse or your childen can benefit from royalties etc. 70 years after you, the creator, die. The age range fluctuates through which country you’re in, but yeah. If you’re interested, you can google for a very discussed case where Disney argued about keeping the copyright for Mickey Mouse, and actually managed to prolong it for a few years.
Authors usually also includes some sort of text which explains how others are allowed to use their copyrighted material (this work is not allowed to be reproduced, copied, (etc) except for a brief excerpt when writing a review).

There’s a possibility to register the copyright with the authorities, of course, but that would only be beneficial in legal circumstances and isn’t really used by most authors. An advice I’ve heard about legitimacy of copyright claims is to send yourself an email with the book and not open it, just to put the date on there (this advice used to be to send yourself a physical copy of your book and not open the envelope). 
I won’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, but copyright and what it entails have become more and more known, and it’s become harder to ”steal” another’s copyright. For example, here on this website, we have timestamps that could prove we were the first to publish, and your word processor will probably hold information that will support your claim of copyright. 

Everything someone else creates has a copyright belonging to them, and that goes for google pictures and lyrics and such as well. Sure, creators could put up creative commons licence or other things that allow others to use their work, but that only allows them to use it and doesn’t transfer the copyright from the creator. But through accepting those licences, they agree to letting others make use of their copyright (this is not always true, so read the licenses carefully). 

Intellectual property — this means your copyright. If you freelance or use a website and they ask for intellectual property or the like, this means that they will overtake the copyright of what you write, and once you’ve written it on the site (or delivered the work) you basically have no claims over the copyright anymore. So be careful what you sign up for! Worst case scenario, you can go to court for using your own text if you’ve agreed to these sorts of terms.

Also, good to know: Fair use
Fair use is that you can quote another one’s work in your own, as long as it doesn’t cross a certain threshold (depends on what type of creation). Borrowing parts of lyrics or poems is generally not used since it would cross the threshold (because they’re so short), so if you want to borrow something from a song or poem, you usually have to contact the copyright holder and get their expressed approval, in writing. 

Um… I’ve probably forgotten something, but I guess I’ll add that if I come to think of it.

Oh, here goes. EDIT: Public Domain
Works in public domain are works which copyright has expired and can be used freely (yes, even published, as many people have done on amazon, with a few tweaks, such as commentary). There are multiple websites that have public domain works gathered and distribute them freely, too.
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