I don't think that the copyright office actually does much review of the submitted material. Copyrights are official the moment you set pen to paper--disputes are settled in the courts. That's why it is handy to have a copy registered with the copyright office, they can certify that your version did exist at a certain prior time.

You cannot copyright ideas per se, though. Someone could express the idea in a different way, without violating copyright. The reason for registering copyright is to establish priority, that you had expressed the idea in a legible and public form before anyone else.

I read this thread and it has some good information but it doesn't quite answer the question I had before reading this. I did some research on how the solar system formed itself and came up with an unconventional explanation. I wrote a brief paper complete with bibliography but what do I do with it, where specifically can I send it for peer review?

Possibly, some of the entries in your bibliography are journal articles? Those journals are probably peer-reviewed, meaning it will be subjected to peer review when you submit it to the journal. The journals usually have author submission guidelines in each issue--or you might find them on their website.

Well, $30 is better than $5,000 for a patent!

Would a copyright cover the details of a process?

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

"Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." - Heinlein

"Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite." - Heinlein

I'm pretty sure that copyright does not protect the details of a process. But IANAL, TG.

I'm something of a writer but one point which hasn't been made here is that, of course, we are all readers too. And we each of us know what we like to read about. my writings are a bit slow at the moment but I would like to insert a pleas for more writings along a certain topic line. I'd like to read some up to date literature.

What I'd like to read about is the hardware plans for shoertly up and coming space adventures. For example, how is NASA getting on with the design for another lunar lander? I've just seen a drawing in the newspaper of something that looked as if it was out of '50s science fiction. There weren't many details attached to it which seemed a shame to me, but clearly there is nothing much available at grass roots.

What about the hardware to get us to Mars? We 've talked about it long enough. Ever since the eighties I seem to rember ideas about twin spacecraft on a double mission to the red planet, plus landers which looked like big versions of the existing luner landers. A bit like Capricorn One writ large. I must say I'm baffled and bemused at the thought of a manned landing which incorporated the necessity to make a return trip. Are we all just singing into the wind, chaps, or can we really give it out best shot.

Whatever, lets not let it end up like the fiasco the lunar landings have turned out at length to be and will continue to be till we establish some permenant lunar bases.

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You cannot create a truth by believing in a falsehood.

I dunno, some firm in the US patented a method of filing taxes. Actually sued a former tax preparer who used them in his own practice.

A real moment to me.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

What is being missed here, IMHO, is that there are really 3 parts to saying something is real.

1. Does it exist?

2. Can we actually define what it is doing?

3. Do we know what the mechanism is that makes it?

So, for the earth sciences we are pretty close to knowing all three, BUT until GR and QFT are Unified, for cosmology, # 2 is many times iffy, and #3 won't be known until it is.

I think it takes #3 to really make it 'real'.

Missed this one before. The discussion was about whether copyright would work in lieu of a patent I think.
4. Are you in the right universe?

I think that you only require "1". If it exists then surely it must be real? (No comments about complex numbers, etc... )

Here's a web site that may be of interest to independent researchers:

http://philica.com/index.php

Hopefully this doesn't come off as too 'elitist' sounding............

There is a reason that people go to universities, get phD's, and learn all the tools essential to doing proper scientific research. If the average person does "independent research" then science as a whole will not benefit, but instead be inundated with bad ideas, bad assumptions, and bad research. Getting your ideas out to the science community is a good idea, but is detrimental if it is masquerading as expert opinion. If it is published in a journal, then its going to be accepted as expert opinion regardless of who wrote it. My advice is to become properly trained in your chosen field, and then work on your research in conjunction with a university, museum, or research institute. Any "journal" that is lax on the peer review process (online or not) is not doing science a service in any way. Science must retain its integrity. Presenting non-peer reviewed work on a website for example could lead to some poor high school student interpreting that work as legitimate.

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Those who cannot attack the thought, instead attack the thinker.

Great spirits have always faced violent protest from mediocre minds

It did. What you missed is that to make a discovery one has to think hard about it and he/she must be right. Intelligent amateurs have an avantage over professionals since they think harder and since they don't know how things work they imagine how they work and sometimes they really work this way. Professional on the other hand usually believe in a theory that they learned but it ain't so. But of course for one inelligent amateur there are many ignorant fools which makes an impression that you are 100% right.

So you're saying that an amateur scientist "thinks harder" and therefore is more qualified than a professional? I'm afraid that doesn't really make any sense.

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Those who cannot attack the thought, instead attack the thinker.

Great spirits have always faced violent protest from mediocre minds

Think about all the discoveries made by amateurs. E.g. by a certain patent office clerk who turned upside down all what the professionals of his time believed in...

One example means nothing. In todays world of technology, an amateur 99% of the times not only does not have access to the proper tools, but lacks the guidance of an expert in using those tools. If you want to do "meaningful" research, my advice is to go get some degrees. Otherwise you're shooting in the dark............

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Those who cannot attack the thought, instead attack the thinker.

Great spirits have always faced violent protest from mediocre minds

Bad example, at least for the point you're trying to make. This "patent office clerk" already had a degree (or its equivalent) from a university. In today's employment climate he probably would not have been hired on grounds of "overqualification".

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

Has there ever been a case where someone presented an original idea on bautforum.com that later made its way to a peer reviewed journal, or at least to a poster presentation at some conference somewhere?

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Fitting a three-parameter curve of uncertain form to ten points with three exceptions certainly brings one to the far edge of the known world. -- Bradley Ephron

You can self publish at lulu.com

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Aunt Beru; Luke's just not a farmer, Owen. He has too much of his father in him.
Uncle Owen; That's what I'm afraid of.

I'm with you on this one. I'm finding that everyone in academia is thinking that I'm either kooky, or they just are too good or busy for me.

It's kind of disheartening. I even tried the Vatican observatory with no response as of yet.