Who Owns My Map? Options

[Godfather]

You have spend countless hours creating a mission, only to have it used or edited by someone else.

This is an ongoing problem and I have seen many (many) discussions about this on many different sites. Some say the missions are "Public Domain" and you have no recourse. Some say "Novalogic Owns them" as your using their editor and software. Others argue that you gave up any rights you had when you released it to the public.

Then there is the line of thought that it should be considered "intellectual property", and you have certain rights under the law to protect you.

Intellectual property
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In law, intellectual property is an umbrella term for various legal entitlements which attach to certain types of information, ideas, or other intangibles in their expressed form. The holder of this legal entitlement is generally entitled to exercise various exclusive rights in relation to the subject matter of the intellectual property.
The term intellectual property reflects the idea that this subject matter is the product of the mind or the intellect, and that intellectual property rights may be protected at law in the same way as any other form of property. However, the use of the term and the concepts it is said to embody are the subject of some controversy.

Then there is the other thought that the term "Plagiarism" could become involved, when you edit or take another's work.

Plagiarism is the practice of dishonestly claiming original authorship of material which one has not actually created, such as when a person incorporates material from someone else's work into his own work without attributing it. Within academia, plagiarism is seen as academic dishonesty, and is a serious and punishable academic offense.

Now no one has ever tested these limits in a court of law over a mission "at least that I am aware of." so is your work protected or not?

It shall be the policy here, that mission designs are to be considered the "intellectual property" of the mission designer(s) and afforded such protection. and that editing another's work "without prior permission" would at best be considered an act of "Plagiarism" and at worst and act of "Theft".

Can we do anything to help you if your work is stolen? Sorry to say "no". Outside these forums we have no control or lawyers on retainer to assist you. But we will assist you in getting the word out about the problem and use what ever influence we have to assist you and stand behind you as a mission designer.

[Godfather]

The hard and true facts about Guest's work!

Author: Mitch Keeler

Content theft is something that happens to everybody. Having been a target of these thieves myself, as well as being one who has studied up on how to deal with them, I thought I would share some tips with you on how to reclaim ownership of your content.

Under copyright law, anything that you have created is automatically copyrighted by you, as the creator. Just because you distribute your maps, artwork, photography and more for free online does not give anybody else the right to steal it.

So what should you do first? Try to find a way to contact the thief, either by using the contact information on the web site or looking up their contact information via a domain name (WhoIs search.)

Next, write up a professional e-mail to them asking for them to please remove your content from their site(s). Do not be rude or abusive about it. Just make sure you point out the source of your work, where they are plagiarizing your work, and give them a reasonable time frame to remove it (5 to 7 days should work).

This should take care of the issue nine times out of ten. If it does not, then you might want to look into other options, such as contacting their advertisers, their hosting company, a cease and desist order, or requesting that the various search engines around the Web ban them for duplicate content.

For more help on copyright, content theft and plagiarism, please check out these resources:

Plagiarism.org
What to Do When Someone Steals Your Content
Crash Course in Copyright

Just remember, do not be afraid to fight for your work if it is being used by somebody else. That is your creation, and you should defend your rights when somebody else is stealing it.

Source: Lunarpages

So without a doubt, no questions YOU OWN YOUR WORK.