Copyrights and Sassypants

So, the other day I was just reading along and sending comment love back to the sweet folks that had left comments on my blog. I clicked on a commentors link to find my own words from my July 4th post front and center on her blog page as if she had written them all by HER lonesome. Now I am a paralegal and have worked with attorneys for years, and after beginning my blog I asked one of these defenders of the law about copywriting the written word. In true lawyer fashion, I did not get a perfectly straight answer, but here is the jest of what was said. As soon as the words are written they are copyrighted by the writer. If two entities should ever go to court over the rights, the one whose words were the original has to prove they are the original writer of said words. So if it is a very serious manuscript, like the next Great American Novel that I have in the works (hehe), it is best to send it off to the Library of Congress and get an ISBN # - I'll let you reserach that your ownself if you are interested - or mail yourself a copy of the manuscript to get a postmarked date as proof of the original text. Now for us everyday lovers of blogging and sharing and growing in our writing craft it is sufficiant to ask others not to use your words or photos without permission. But some folks don't play nice and do it anyway. You can also put the copyright logo - a c with a circle around it -I hope I can figure out how to do it - following the text and the words all rights reserved by (fill in your lovely name). So for all my blog/writer friends out there who are sharing your personal stories, please protect your words by figuring out how to add that logo (and tell me how to do it too!) :) Obviously, we all know that our words are out there in the public forum and that is really the point, but protect yourselves sweet love muffins.

Back to the other story, I wrote the young lady a nice note stating that I had a disclaimer not to use my words without my permission; and more than likely I would have given my permission had she asked and all would be peachy keen. But it really wasn't all that nice to take my stuff and put it on her blog without even a word of explanation to the whole wide blog world. This is what the little lady wrote back to me (I have removed her name because I'm nice that way, we'll just call her Ms. Sassypants).

As far as you can tell, there's no credit given. But you'd be quite mistaken in thinking you saw my full journal. The way livejournal works is that each post has various viewing settings. Nearly all of mine are viewable to friends only. I don't know if you noticed the timestamp on that particular post, but it was just before midnight, and I forgot to close it to the public. Stamped the following day, credit was given, but as I said, most of my posts are viewable to
friends only. I'm sorry you won't be able to see the proof in that matter because of it.

By the way, if you're so worried about things being taken from your blog, there are ways to make sure your page can't be copied

Now is that sassy or what? That's like saying to your neighbor, you took something that belongs to me out of my yard and I don't appreciate it, and your neighbor says, well, if you put your stuff away, I wouldn't have taken it. Ok, that is so not the point, right? Whatev, I don't have the energy for drama, but that really ticked me off!! Chief and Code-Man were madder than me about the whole thing. They said I was being too nice to Ms. Sasssypants about the whole thing. But I can't be mean, sometimes I need to be, but it is not in my nature. I always want to give the person the benefit of the doubt and hope they really didn't mean it.