My personal psychic experiences
The copyright synch
As a wannabe novelist, I've written a few of them, mostly for my own fun. At one point, many years ago, I toyed with the idea of sending it in to try and get one published. However, before I did that, I wanted to know how to copyright it.
The problem was, I didn't quiet know how to go about doing that. I asked several people and they didn't know. I asked people at work, and a couple of friends called Paul and a lady called Karin. We played board games with her and her husband every second weekend or so.
It was during one of those sessions that Paul asked Karin if she could find out about copyright for me since she worked for a law firm as a secretary. She said that she would do that for me
About three weeks later, a letter from a law firm called Law Partners Barristers & Solicitors arrived in the mail. The envelope was addressed directly to me. I stared at it in puzzlement and wondered what it was about. I opened it up and found it contained within a Client Newsletter for Winter 1989.
Now to the best of my knowledge, I wasn't a client and neither was anyone else I knew. There was no note of explanation with it and it certainly wasn't advertisement. Later on in my bedroom, for some reason, I picked it up once more. I had the nagging feeling that I should know something in connection with law firms. Then the penny dropped: Karin. It could only be her. I skimmed the letter and sure enough, on page three was a column entitled Protecting Your Ideas. In the second paragraph it went on to read.
If you are the author of any artistic or literary work, such as design drawings for a prototype of an invention, you automatically have a right to copyright or the exclusive right to use of the work.
To protect this right, you must mark your work 'copyright', use the symbol ©, name the author/owner and state the year first published. A witness's signature is also a good idea. Copyright generally exists for a period of 50 years after the author of the work dies.
Well that was the information I needed. Knowing the type of person she was, it was typical of Karin not to include some sort of note. She obviously thought that If I didn't read the leaflet, I would be my own fault!
I rang up Paul the next day and told him about it. Then the day after, he rang me at work.
"Karin and Anthony just came in to work." he said. "I thanked her for the letter she sent you on behalf of you which I felt was the right thing to do. She said 'What letter?' 'The letter you sent Gary or got someone to send to Gary about Copyright.' 'I never sent him anything.' she told me."
"What!" I practically screeched. "That's impossible!"
"Well that's what she said."
"Was she joking?"
"No. She was serious."
Karin wasn't exactly a person who was thick on humour or liked joking.
So I thought about it and asked everybody over the next few days if it was they who sent the information. Everyone denied it and most people didn't even know I was trying to Copyright my book, anyway. Karin confirmed that it wasn't her when I saw her, claiming that she wouldn't send something to me, she would just give it.
I've never received another newsletter from this firm, nor did I ever get around to finding out why my name suddenly appeared on their distribution list.
