For instance: Back when I was still seeing my therapist, and I'd just started this diary, I was talking to her about it and she was all concerned about copywriting and whether or not one is protected from stealing and such. I told her how most diarists I'd seen had some sort of statement of ownership, but kind of countered with 1) I don't really see anyone stealing my diary for either credit or profit ... I'd say I'd only be about twice as offended as I would be flattered, just yet. But 2) For some reason, I was just under the impression that on the internet copyriting is kind of automatic. And let me explain why I thought so.

Way back in the olden days when I was young, when we walked 10 miles uphill and back blah blah blah ... well, the internet was not quite so well spread, and for young ambitious writers who were also poor, the "cheap copyright" thing was to simply mail yourself your manuscript before you gave it to anyone else, and leave that copy unopened. Supposedly the mail seal made it like an instant notary or something -- I dunno, but that was supposed to protect your work from theft. And I just kind of figured for anything online -- it's not really as if there's no record of what we've said and when, right?

I mean, certainly we can go back and edit entries -- but I'd guess even doing that would be time stamped. In any event, certainly there would have to be records online of anything anyone found in a diary through a search engine, right? I mean, even if you'd lost the original entry, wouldn't google have a record of your having had such an entry ... I don't know. That's kind of where my bullshit reasoning ran out.

But as it turns out, however it actually works out, apparently I was right in a general sense. Pursuant to some federal act or other, anything published online by a person is taken to be copyrighted by that person unless otherwise noted. Which, of course, means that any of us who quote things without providing a full reference are -- what's the word? Plagiarizing?