Interesting question asked by...
...Patty McNally Doherty in a comment to my immediately previous post regarding whether the authors of the writing required of the Family Caregiver Writing Study will retain copyright to what they write. She is generous in assuming I checked into this. I didn't. In fact, my assumption, when considering the study, was that I would not retain copyright and I haven't been bothered by this possibility. I've considered that I am going to attempt to copy what I've written off what I assume is a standard form entry and save it to my computer, but it occurred to me that, being timed writing, the form, itself, is probably designed to allow writing for only and exactly 20 minutes. If this is so and I am to do any justice to the purpose of the study, my attention should probably not be on how long I've been writing and when would be a good time to stop, select and copy before allowing the form to gather my writing. I have no idea if the form is designed to automatically register its contents and disappear after 20 minutes or to simply disallow any more entry after twenty minutes, after which the participant is responsible for clicking a button that codifies the writing into the study, in which case I would be able to copy what I wrote. It also isn't my intention, though, to publish, here, what I write, although I may review it in arrears if what I write intrigues me. My guess, too, is that stream of consciousness writing on the topics presented is encouraged and preferred, but that's just a guess. Although I write so much that I don't have difficulty quickly expressing myself cogently (at least, most of the time), my primary interest is to follow the lead of the study and be as pristine as possible, relatively to the study, regarding the writing.
    I am curious, though, now that Patty's raised the question. I'll shoot an email to Dr. Butcher tomorrow pointing him to this post, the comment on the immediately previous post and ask him about the copyright question. If the study retains copyright, though, this doesn't concern me. I do an awful lot of writing, in comments on the web and in other areas, that I don't retain nor try to recover. Although, by law, I know I retain the copyright to comments and a lot of other stuff I write, much of what I write in these venues I deliberately lose track of.
    I know my ambivalence toward retaining everything I write, and the copyright thereof, must seem odd, since in many arenas I am zealous about the copyright question. But, you know, there you have it.
    Anyway, thanks, Patty, for raising the question. I'll see if I can get an answer to it.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 00:36   email  this post