Quote:
Originally Posted by Giggleton
And what if there was no door to send things out of? What if everything just existed in its own place at all times?
At what point do we say a work has been published? When the creator of the work determines it to be so? Would creating a single copy of a work and leaving it on your coffee table cause the work to be published if the author wills it to be so? Does this act of publishing qualify as sending itself out the door? Has the work now entered the public consciousness to be acted upon? Able to be torn apart and reworked into something more?
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Legally speaking, when he submits it to his publisher for sale, sells it directly or otherwise disseminates it in a manner consistent with his intent to make it available for public consumption. And by public, i mean doing more than passing it around to editors, or a select group of friends seeking a critique. Or in the case of the web, more than just sending it to a beta.
You seem not to care at all that a writer has a very real property right in his creation just as much a if he'd built a hot rod or a house with his hands. If he wills that hotrod be dismantled on his death or that house destroyed or otherwise disposed of, its his perogative, just as much with his creative works left behind.
It is
his by definition. It does not cease to be his just because he pulled it out of his head and put it on paper. You don't have the right to consume that material until he says you do.