is there a Hollywood talent scout lurking here at conservativecave?

[franksolich]

Probably not, but I thought I would ask anyway.

I dunno if it's accessible to members, or only to moderators, but there's a page here (sometimes after I cross-post with freerepublic, three pages) that lists who's all here, what they're up to (i.e., what they're reading), and their ISP (internet service provider number).

The same thing for guests, excepting it just says "guest," and then the information.

The most common "activities"--what people are doing here--are "viewing," "commenting," "posting a new topic," and lesser actions such as "composing personal message" or "reading personal messages" or "unknown action."  And of course "using the spellchecker."

And oh, one other--"printing."

There's usually a "guest," the ISP number from Lost Angeles, "printing."

The ISP number varies, but it's always from a Hollywood-type of place in or near Lost Angeles.

I've been intrigued by this singular phenomenon for some months now; not least because this person in Lost Angeles is always "printing".....short stories by franksolich.

I know this person has "printed" every episode of the William Rivers Pitt, the 740-cubic-tons mound of antique swine excrement from 1875-1950, that is a prominent landmark here.  In case anyone's forgotten, I wrote over 50 of those episodes about the William Rivers Pitt, until the good-looking chick asked me to defer for a while until her Ph.D. thesis on it is done.

(Notice the "defer for a while," which is not the same thing as "stopping".)

This person in Lost Angeles has probably used cases of reams of paper, "printing" my short stories.

One wonders why.

And so two questions.

One can only speculate, but input, please.

Number one, maybe perhaps this might be someone in Hollywood looking around for story ideas?

I've heard Hollywood pays big bucks for story ideas.

Number two, maybe perhaps I should copyright such stories, or am I protected by the copyright here, or by proof of having been the first to write something?

Just in case a story idea is sold, and they need to know where to send a check.

Speculations, if anybody's got any; I'd appreciate it.

[franksolich]

Bump for speculation.

[Wineslob]

Beats the snot out of me.    I haven't got a lick of "talent".   

[The Village Idiot]

All they would have to do is change the names and the facts around a tiny bit to make it not yours anymore.

Your stories are great by the way.

[miskie]

well - I can answer the copyright question

Anything you create is automatically copyrighted to you, SO as long as there is proof of ownership you are good to go. You could collect your works together and register your copyright, whereby if someone infringes on your intellectual property, you have the government to back your claim.

Your copyright is valid until 70 years after your death. If an heir or descendant does not claim your copyright and register it through the government before the 70 years is up, your work becomes public domain.

This is pretty much true for all created works - poetry, music, stories, novels, etc.

edited - the number is now 70 years, not 50.

[franksolich]

well - I can answer the copyright question

Anything you create is automatically copyrighted to you, SO as long as there is proof of ownership you are good to go. You could collect your works together and register your copyright, whereby if someone infringes on your intellectual property, you have the government to back your claim.

Your copyright is valid until 50 years after your death. If an heir or descendant does not claim your copyright and register it through the government before the 50 years is up, your work becomes public domain.

This is pretty much true for all created works - poetry, music, stories, novels, etc.

There was an interesting incident some years ago, before I went to the socialist paradises; this was when I was manager of a student union on the city campus of the University of Nebraska, during the late 1980s, early 1990s.

One day this guy came in, and wanted to see me.

I said yeah, sure, no problem.

He was a professor of English at the University of Nebraska; it took me a while to recognize him.  I had had him one time when I was a lowly freshman, and he always had hundreds of students each semester, because he taught the freshman-level composition classes.  Probably had so many students each semester he couldn't know any of them.

After an exchange of pleasantries and courtesies, he showed me something a composition student had submitted (as his own work) that past week.

I recognized it right away; I had written it myself long ago, and it was about the superiority of the British spellings of words over the Noah Webster spellings.  (When I was 18 years old, I was sort of silly, but never mind.)

"Did you write this?" he asked.

I said yeah, sure; it would take a while to find the original in various boxes, among all the yellowed and dusty papers, but I was sure I still had the original.

He said no, that was fine, he'd take my word on it, because he was sure franksolich had written it anyway, many years ago.

"It couldn't have been written by anybody but [franksolich]," he insisted.

I never did find out what happened to the student's grade; he had copied it exactly, including two gross grammatical errors I myself had made.

[miskie]

A speculative answer to the 'print' question -

Though the feature is listed as 'print' - for 'printer friendly', it doesn't necessarily mean they are running off a hard-copy. You may have a fan who reads your work with a web-enabled device, such as a cellphone, PalmPilot, etc. All the unnecessary formatting and graphics make it slow to download and difficult to read on such a small screen, so some go for just the important stuff, the text only, which is what 'print' provides.

[miskie]

There was an interesting incident some years ago, before I went to the socialist paradises; this was when I was manager of a student union on the city campus of the University of Nebraska, during the late 1980s, early 1990s.

One day this guy came in, and wanted to see me.

I said yeah, sure, no problem.

He was a professor of English at the University of Nebraska; it took me a while to recognize him.  I had had him one time when I was a lowly freshman, and he always had hundreds of students each semester, because he taught the freshman-level composition classes.  Probably had so many students each semester he couldn't know any of them.

After an exchange of pleasantries and courtesies, he showed me something a composition student had submitted (as his own work) that past week.

I recognized it right away; I had written it myself long ago, and it was about the superiority of the British spellings of words over the Noah Webster spellings.  (When I was 18 years old, I was sort of silly, but never mind.)

"Did you write this?" he asked.

I said yeah, sure; it would take a while to find the original in various boxes, among all the yellowed and dusty papers, but I was sure I still had the original.

He said no, that was fine, he'd take my word on it, because he was sure franksolich had written it anyway, many years ago.

"It couldn't have been written by anybody but [franksolich]," he insisted.

I never did find out what happened to the student's grade; he had copied it exactly, including two gross grammatical errors I myself had made.

This reminds me of the tale about a man who steals a hog and then tries to sell the same hog back to the man he stole it from the next day. I remember this tale from long ago, when I was maybe five or six years old.

It still amazes me to this day how often people's actions remind me of that story. Especially since every time I hear or read something that does, it's always done by someone much older than six..

Anyway, When it comes to writing, art, music, etc. ,we all have quirky flourishes and techniques that identify the author of that work. -(Besides grammatical quirks and colloquialisms) anything I type can be identified fairly easily by unnecessary hyphens and double and triple periods.

And anything I have read by franksolich can be written by nobody other than franksolich.