StolenWork

Ballenger Creek Middle School

5525 Ballenger Creek Pike

Frederick, Maryland 21703

December 1, 2008

Little, Brown and Company

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY  10017

Dear Stephenie Meyer:

Hello, I am in the 7^th grade at Ballenger Creek Middle School in Frederick, Maryland.  I have been learning about copyright laws and how the laws work.  My teacher told my class about your personal story regarding what happened to your rough draft of Midnight Sun and it being posted on the internet before it was copyrighted. 

Our teacher has taught us that the copyright law states, “The copyright is a law that protects an individual’s property rights of an original work”.  Copyrights are meant to protect a person’s published work.  Yes, the law recently changed this year to allow what is considered “Fair Use” which allows students to limited use of some materials for educational purposes, but this was not necessarily the case with your rough draft of Midnight Sun. 

I understand you gave a trusted person a rough copy of your work of Midnight Sun and that this person then took the copy and posted it on-line for everyone to see before the actual book had been revised and published.  Besides the fact that you were probably upset with this trusted person who had seemed like a friend, probably the most upsetting point was the fact that there was nothing you could do to stop the posting from appearing on-line.

While I understand you were upset and that what your trusted person did was not so trustworthy, I don’t think there is anything you can do to stop this from appearing on the internet.  The way we are taught in school about copyright laws, something is only copyrighted when it is published.  As this was a rough draft when it was given out, it was not copyrighted yet.  This doesn’t mean you still won’t be mad, but legally there is nothing that can be done.  I understand this could be considered devastating in your eyes and hurtful, but based on the copyright laws, I don’t see any way to get the writing off the internet.

I understand that the copyright laws are meant to protect original work, like your Midnight Sun piece, but these laws are can be broken by people without us meaning them to be broken.  I think from now on I would only give rough drafts to people that I had legal contracts with so that even your rough drafts would be protected.   I know the posting of the Midnight Sun on the internet was not what you wanted to happen, but your situation was a good learning experience for kids like me to learn about the copyright laws.

Sincerely,

Farmboy 24