sharing ideas online

Honestly, I'm not worried about my content being stolen. If someone really is that desperate to make some money so they have to steal "ideas" so be it. Don't get me wrong I would be upset but the way I'm looking at it is just like if someone stole something else. Like a apple from the grocery store. Or a purse out of your car. There must be a reason and that they are desperate. And maybe they need it more than we do. And I"m not condoning stealing either thought. Let me make sure I get that across. But i believe in a higher power and people who do things that they shouldn't will be judged than. And I also feel everything happens for a reason. And so if something does get stolen I'm sure there must be a higher purpose that we just do not know about. And I did not know that about the us and I live here. I know it is copyrighted if you but a c with a circle around it and the year. But not if you just put an idea out or a exact sentence. Thanks for the info.

I think it depends on what you have written about. If it's something that has a unique idea behind it, then I wouldn't post it online. Many people use the internet to get ideas or research projects that they are working on.

They say there are no new ideas, so even if someone steals your idea, that doesn't mean they're necessarily going to use it the same way you would. Of course, if you're very specific, then you may be giving too much away. As for sharing on community sites, I don't do it. I'm at the point where I can probably sell anything I write, and I'm not going to risk having it stolen. Copyright law doesn't mean much on the web because most of the time, you don't even know your material has been stolen. And unless you do know and can prove it's yours, there's not much you can do about it. Also, you need to think about future publishing. If you want to sell your work to a publisher, they may want first rights, and if you've published it anywhere on the web, they will refuse it. Even som online publishers make that demand and are that strict about it. If you're a beginning writer, you don't need to worry about these issues so much because it's unlikely you're going to be able to compete with professional writers anyway.

People do tend to take people's ideas online. I guess it's easier to do online, than in the real world, because it won't be as easy to catch online maybe?

I write quite a lot online and I don't know if any of my work has ever been plagiarised. If it has, I haven't found out about it yet. I wouldn't be happy if any of my work were stolen, but that is a risk you take when you put your work online. Anything I really wouldn't want stolen, I don't put online. As for ideas, if a group of people were all given the same theme or title to write to, they would all produce very different work, so I don't think that is really a problem.