Under U.S. law (and the same is true in most other countries), you have copyright of your work as soon as you create it, even if you don’t register it officially.
You also gain some protection through our terms and conditions
agreement. We allow members to maintain full copyright of their original work.
It is possible, if you needed to prove ownership of your work in court, you can show, as evidence with some weight, that you posted the work on Neopoet at a certain date. Though this won’t be as strong as official registration with the copyright office, this may have some currency in court.
But no matter the precautions you take, the truth is that your work has a chance of being plagarized if you give it wider circulation.
If your poetry never ventures into the world, you’ll never hear back from other poets, and you’ll never get a chance to improve your work like you can on Neopoet.
It’s a balance you have to consider.
[Legal note: This article wasn’t written by a lawyer and isn’t legal advice, just the opinion of a non-professional. If you require services of a lawyer, please contact one.]
