Young Writers Society

I looked this up a while ago, but I need a refresher.

After searching the web for a whole bunch of short stories and getting my favorites list clogged with them, I thought of putting the short stories and poems in my own website, for easy reference. Most of these short stories and poems are old and I see them all over the web anyway. Still, I want it to remain legal. Is there anything about the copyrights of short stories and poems that I should be aware of?

Well, if they're in the public domain (earlier than 1923) than they're free game. You can post them. After that... well, I think it depends.

The best way to go about it would be to ask the permission of the authors. If it's anonymous, I believe you can post it. Stories are rarely anonymous, but some poetry is.

Usually links are okay, unless someone is a poopy-head and asks you to take the link down. Even just having the story up is unlikely to get you into any trouble. And in order for anything to go to court (which is the most extreme of circumstances), the author has to prove you caused them some sort of loss of income. So that is unlikely. Most of the time, stuff that is up on the Internet is there because people want it to be seen, so I think you're safe putting up pretty much anything.

If the author has been dead for 50 (or is it 70? can't remember...) years or more, than it can be freely used.

I think it's 70.

Ya pretty much anything is practically fair game on the internet. You know how much of an ass he would have to be to actually find you for one then take you to court. lol, if you get taken to court cuz' of it, i'll donate all my pts to you lol

lol