Good news and bad news about that copyright lawsuit I’m part of.
Since writing a post last month about my participation in the huge copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, there have been a few developments.
First, a settlement was reached between the plaintiffs and Anthropic. A big settlement: $1.5 billion to be paid to affected authors. This came out to $3,000 per infringed work. Whoa.
I join the class action suit against Anthropic for the use of text in 16 of my books to train their AI without permission or compensation.
I didn’t expect to spend part of my morning filling in a form on a lawyer’s website to provide information about myself and the books Anthropic apparently used to train their AI. After all, I haven’t written much in the past 10 years and all of what I’d written before then was about using computers. Surely all of those books were so sorely out of date that even an AI wouldn’t be interested in them.
But here I am.
I ease back into writing for hire.
One of the things I’ve been working on part-time for past few years is getting back into writing articles for publication.
Although I thought I had a working relationship with Waterway Guide, that fizzled out pretty quickly. The publisher was initially excited about working with me and made some suggestions about how much money I might earn writing for them. I did my part to help build content on their site with a never-ending stream of marina and anchorage reviews. (I still get the occasional compliment for my reviews.)
But after months on the Loop, I just got one article assignment — and I never got paid for it. I was very interested in helping to update the Skipper Bob books — especially the one for the Erie Canal — but was told other people were doing it. No other work was forthcoming. So I stopped writing reviews. I’m a professional writer, after all, and I’m not going to go out of my way to build content for a for-profit publication without getting compensation for my work.
I think there are two reasons this time, one familiar and one new.
Let’s face it: I’ve been blogging at An Eclectic Mind since long before it had that name. My first blog post was way back in 2003. The blog had my name back then, Maria Langer, and it could be found at MariaLanger.com — where it can still be found; try it! I wrote about the things that were on my mind. For a while, I wrote computer-related how-to content, but I eventually broke that out and put it into a site called Maria’s Guides which I’ve since allowed to die. I wrote a lot about politics. I wrote a lot about my work and my play. I wrote a lot about my crazy divorce. I wrote a lot about social media. I wrote a lot about building a new life in Washington State.
Heck, I just wrote a lot about anything that was on my mind.
And that’s what I personally think a blog is for. At least this blog.
There are no ads here. No tracking. No annoying pop-ups begging you to subscribe or send me money. It’s just the blog of a writer — a person who has always written — sharing what’s on her mind.
If you come here often to read my latest and actually like a lot of what you read, great! I’m thrilled to have you here!
But if you stumbled in here unknowingly and have concluded that this blog is crap and a total waste of your time, well, just go away and don’t come back. It doesn’t bother me.
And if you think that’s harsh, well blame social media. (Also understand that “go away” is not what I originally wrote.)
Four months on, I’m using my notebooks regularly and have made them part of my life.
Note: This is part 3 of my Traveler’s Notebook saga. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. – Maria
Time has gone by. I haven’t written much in this blog, mostly because April, May, June, and most of July have been crazy hectic for me. I finally got my boat into San Juan Yachting’s charter program, I made jewelry inventory for and attended four art shows, and I even managed to spend just over two weeks on the boat with a good friend of mine. Along the way, I planted my garden, maintained my vehicles, cared for my home and pups, and socialized with friends.
In other words, I lived a busy life.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.