Tag Archives: writing

A Tale of two Copyright Infringements

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Together, we can stop it.

CopyrightThe other day, while trying in vain to catch up with missed tweets by the people I follow on Twitter, I noticed that two of my Twitter friends were dealing with copyright-related issues. Since then, both issues were resolved. I believe that part of the reason for the speedy resolution of these problems was involvement by the Twitter community.

Content Theft

The first case came to light when one of my Twitter friends, @anntorrence, complained that she had not gotten a response from the blogger who used one of her articles on his site. The link to the article in question told the rest of the story. Ann had written a great tips piece about preparing for a cold-weather photowalk. The article was originally published on Ann’s blog, Pixel Remix: the Ann-alog. Later, it was picked up with her permission on Photowalking Utah. The same article was picked up without her permission by a new photowalking Web site that was obviously anxious to build content and Google juice.

Ann’s article is copyrighted — as is most content on the Web. Her obvious distress over the piece being used without her permission bothered me. After all, I earn my living as a writer and have seen my own content stolen again and again. In my case, it often affects my livelihood by distributing content that I normally receive royalties for. But that doesn’t mean that content theft is any less wrong when it’s from a blog or other free source.

I went to the Web site guilty of the theft and posted a comment there. I also wrote to the owner of the site. I was horrified not only to see the theft, but because that site was one of the few that I actually paid to advertise my helicopter business on. I was not interested in supporting a site that was stealing content. If they stole from Ann, who else had they stolen from? How much of the content was original or reused with permission? (Needless to say, I pulled my ad immediately.)

The owner of the site made the fatal error of replying to me in Twitter. He defended his actions by saying that he “gives credit when due.” He was obviously clueless about copyright law — as most people incapable of creating their own content appear to be. He seemed to think that if it was on the Web, it was free for use anywhere, as long as he put a byline for the original author. He appeared to think he was being generous by including a link back to the article — not the original, but the site he stole it from.

An @reply argument ensued, with me trying to educate him and him responding arrogantly. He tried to continue the argument in e-mail. After I left my computer (and Twitterrific), he was apparently blasted by other Twitter users who got in on the discussion with their own @replies.

Ann has since gotten satisfaction for the situation — her article has been removed. Unfortunately, the owner of the site still doesn’t get it. He has written a post apologizing for not giving proper links back to original articles. He evidently does not understand that he needs permission to reuse copyrighted work.

I wonder what Scott Kelby will say when he sees his work used on the offender’s site. Personally, I hope he sues the site owner’s sorry ass.

I would urge people to boycott the site, but that might send new visitors there just to check it out. Instead, I’ll just urge people not to frequent sites that steal content. If you think a blog’s post contains content used without permission, don’t be afraid to comment about it.

Removing Copyright Notices

The second case was far more blatant. Some idiot had written a blog post about how to remove copyright notices from photos and other images found on the Web. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he used someone else’s copyrighted image for his example. That someone else was @PattyHankins, one of my Twitter friends.

Patty mentioned the problem in Twitter and I went to investigate. The post in question was a typical hacker/pirate post with instructions for removing copyright notices that were part of a photo. Patty’s photo appeared numerous times in the step-by-step instructions. After the first time, the author of the post made a comment like, “I don’t know who Patty Hankins is, but nice picture.” Extremely obnoxious.

I posted a comment to the post. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but it clearly pointed out that the author of the post and site was violating Patty’s copyright. Evidently, many other Twitter users did the same thing. So when Patty sent his ISP a DMCA notice, she got a quick response. The photo was removed within four hours.

Patty referred me to “Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringement” on NatureScapes.net for what she says is the most effective sample DMCA letter she’s ever used.

Again, I believe that one of the reasons Patty had a relatively easy time of getting the photo off the infringer’s Web site was the outpouring of comments by outraged Twitter users.

For More Information…

If this post interests you, you might be interested in the following links.

And please do use the Comments link or form to add your thoughts about this matter. If you are one of the offending bloggers, however, don’t waste your time. My blog is not your soapbox.

Related Links:

A Different Kind of eBook

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My first full-length, destined for electronic publication ebook.

In the spring, I was approached by one of my regular publishers to do a new title for them. This was a surprise. After all, as the computer user base is getting ever more sophisticated, sales of print computer how-to books for the beginner to intermediate market I write for are getting ever smaller. I honestly don’t expect to sell titles on new computer topics anymore.

But this book was different in two respects:

  • It would be published as an ebook only.
  • It would be handled as a work for hire.

An Ebook only in Publication

I should start by saying that everything about the book would be handled just like any other book I wrote for that publisher. I’d have to use a special Word template that I don’t particularly care for but have plenty of practice using. The book would go through the usual collection of editors and production staff: tech editor, copy editor, production editor, proofreader. I’d review the manuscript after each editor was finished with it and mark up my comments and corrections. I still had to get the book done more than a month before it was due to be released.

It was just like writing any other book.

The only difference is, at the end of the process, a case of books didn’t arrive on my doorstep. In fact, it wasn’t until yesterday — nearly two months after the book’s release — that I finally tracked down and downloaded my own copy.

QuickBooks 2009 for Mac CoverThe book, which is titled QuickBooks Accounting 2009: The Official Guide for Mac Users, looks good. It’s in standard page size and orientation (which is something I don’t agree with for ebooks, as I discuss in “Thinking Outside the Book“), with a very pleasant layout and design.

The book is an easy onscreen read on my 24” iMac monitor, but I suspect it might be a little tougher on a smaller monitor if the reader can’t see a full page at a time. It looks to me like they thought readers might want to print it out. (I hope they don’t. It would be a terrible waste of paper.) There are plenty of color screenshots (they got that right) although for some reason they didn’t use color graphic elements, as they do in my other books, which are printed. (Still can’t figure that one out.)

The book uses Adobe Reader’s Bookmarks feature to link to headings from a sidebar and the index’s page number references link back to individual pages. There aren’t any in-text cross-reference links, but part of the reason for that is that I couldn’t use page references as I wrote, so I never referred to specific pages in the text. (FrameMaker was an excellent publishing tool for this sort of thing.)

Security Settings for PDFDistribution of the book is apparently limited to folks who buy QuickBooks 2009 for Mac and somehow get a special code with a Web address. They go to the URL, enter their name, e-mail address, and the code, and the book is downloaded. It opens right up in Acrobat, without the need to enter any special codes, but the word SECURED appears in parentheses in the title bar. A peek at the Security settings for the document shows that certain actions are not allowed, but they aren’t the kind of actions that would prevent anyone from getting the most of the book. In fact, they’re the same settings I would have used if I’d released the book as a PDF.

So I’d venture to say that anyone who downloaded the book would be satisfied with the way it was published. Sure, it’s not in print, but at the same time, it’s also not costing them a penny to obtain.

Thoughts on Piracy

Of course, limited distribution of this ebook will not remain limited. In fact, I’m sure it’s already out there on pirate sites, like all other ebooks eventually are.

It may seem odd to readers to learn that I really don’t care how this book is distributed or who “steals” it. But that’s got to do with the way I was paid for it. I wrote it as a work for hire. That means I got paid a flat fee and handed over all rights to the work. There are no royalties to worry about, so sales is not an issue. I negotiated a price I could live with up front, got my money, and did my job. Even though the book has my name on the cover, it’s not really something I have any kind of ownership of.

I’m pretty sure my publisher had the same deal for the book, but their number was bigger. So they may not care about this book hitting the pirate sites, either.

Lessons Learned

The goal of the publishing project was to create a user guide for QuickBooks 2009 for Mac. To keep costs down and prevent readers from having to buy a printed book, the powers that be decided to go with an ebook. This may reduce revenues all around, but it also saves a lot of money and the bother that goes with print publishing.

I think that’s what ebooks should do: put quality information into the hands of the folks that need it without wasting resources while sufficiently compensating authors for their knowledge and efforts.

I look forward to the next edition of this book.

Five Years Blogging

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How time flies.

Yesterday, while I was busy working — yes, I do work, too — I missed a major milestone in my writing life: my fifth anniversary as a blogger.

I latched on to blogging very early. I saw it for how it was originally intended, as a “Web log” or journal. I’d been wanting to keep a journal of my life and thoughts but could never stick with it. By blogging these things, I put it out there for feedback from others. With an audience, I felt a good reason to write these journal entries. I kept it up.

For five years.

I started blogging on October 15, 2003 with an offline blogging tool called iBlog. I’d use it to compose blog entries offline. When it was time to publish, iBlog would generate all the HTML necessary to create all of the pages for the blog. Publishing was time-consuming, especially as the blog grew in size. It was published to my .Mac disk space and co-existed with my Web site.

In 2004, when I went up to the Grand Canyon to fly helicopter tours, I found it necessary to start a new blog so I could blog from my laptop. This was a shortcoming of iBlog and it soon drove me nuts. Later the same year, I found a way to synchronize my two blogs back into one.

In December 2005, I finally saw the light and switched to WordPress. While I was brave enough to install it on my own Mac OS X Server — and even got it to work! — server problems convinced me to move it to a hosting service. It’s been there, running smoothly, ever since.

All this time, I’d been blogging about whatever I felt like. This included the kinds of “days in my life” posts you find here, as well as how-to articles I wrote for the readers of my computer books. But in November 2007, I decided to split off all the computer articles into their own blog-based site called Maria’s Guides. There was a lot of technical tasks required to pull that off without 404 errors, but I think I did a good job. Sadly, I’ve been neglecting Maria’s Guides a bit lately. I’d rather think — and write — about other things.

That brings us pretty close to today. My blog continues to chug along on the Internet, with me at the helm. I enjoy the ability to say what I want in a forum where others can read and comment on it. I enjoy the interaction with most (but admittedly not all) readers. I find it amazing when certain posts become extremely popular. For example, “Flying At Lake Powell” has been read nearly 19,000 times since it was written in April 2006 and “Cynical Humor” — which is based on content sent to me by a friend — was read more than 2,000 times just the other day. Other blog posts have resulted in a chain of comments which add valuable information to the original post. “The Helicopter Job Market,” which has been read over 18,000 times and has collected 75 comments so far, is a good example.

So yesterday, with no fanfare at all, the fifth anniversary of my first blog post came and went. If it weren’t for a recent reader comment that my blog is “as big as the Grand Canyon,” I would have forgotten this milestone completely. But the comment made me think.

It should be big. I’ve been at it for five years.

Writing Tips: Master the Basics

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If there’s only one thing you do before starting a career as a writer, this is it.

Today, I’m doing a presentation for Wickenburg High School’s Journalism class. I suspect that they’re a bunch of seniors who are interested in journalism or some other branch of writing. Although I’m not a journalist, I feel qualified to speak to them about careers in writing. And since being asked to do this presentation, I’ve been giving the topics I want to discuss a lot of thought.

The Basics

The best piece of advice I can offer anyone considering a career in writing is to master the basics. I mean that quite literally: master the basics of writing. This includes the following:

  • Spelling. Yes, I know that there are spelling checkers in word processors — and even blog offline composition tools like the one I’m using to write this. And no, I’m not saying that you need to know how to spell every word you might ever write absolutely perfectly. But I am saying that you need basic spelling skills. This will help ensure that you don’t misspell a word that spells another word (and, thus, won’t be caught by a spelling checker) or use the wrong word (then instead of than, your instead of you’re, etc.).
  • Want more tips about grammar?
    Read “Grammar is Important“

    Grammar. Again, perfect grammar isn’t an absolute requirement, but a writer’s grammar should certainly be much better than average. Don’t use the grammar checker in a word processor — if you need to rely on that, you may as well give up on any idea of being a writer. The best way to learn grammar is to read and study good writing. I’m not talking about Dickens here. And I’m certainly not talking about blogs. I’m talking about The New York Times, NewsWeek, and other quality publications that are written and edited by professionals. Don’t get the idea that grammar rules are meant to be broken so they don’t matter. You need to learn the rules before you can break them.

  • Punctuation. This goes with grammar. Punctuation is pretty easy. If you can’t master it, you’re not going to impress many editors.
  • Style. Here’s where things start drifting away from what you can learn in basic English classes. Every writer should be able to develop his or her own style or voice. This is something that comes with practice — I don’t think it can be taught. Style includes vocabulary and word usage, as well as the rhythm of your sentences and paragraphs. I believe that the only way a writer can develop his or her own style is by writing and then rewriting. A lot. Every day. Once you’ve got your own style, you should be able to go the next step, which is to emulate (okay, copy) someone else’s style. In fact, a good writer should be able to write in whatever style he or she is called upon to write in.

Here’s the deal. If you try to start a career as a writer and you haven’t mastered the basics, there isn’t much of a chance of you getting a job as a writer. No editor is going to want to deal with submitted work that is fraught with basic writing errors. It’ll take too long to edit.

And if you expect to be a freelance writer, your chances of getting published are slim if you can’t submit an error-free manuscript.

It doesn’t matter what kind of writing you want to do — newspaper journalist, technical writer, advertising copywriter, short story author, novelist. If you can’t write, you’re not going to get work as a writer. It’s as simple as that.

A Story with a Point

And to finish this piece off, I’ll tell you — and that high school class — a true story. Back in 1978, when I started college, English 101 and 102 were freshman year requirements. These two courses took what we supposedly learned in high school to the next level.

I wasn’t very interested in taking English — I wanted to take a creative writing class instead. Fortunately, my college offered a way out. I could write an essay about a topic of interest to me and submit that for evaluation. if the essay was good enough, I wouldn’t have to take either freshman English class.

I wrote the essay. It was about how high school fails to prepare young people for life. I was 17 at the time — please don’t do the math — and already thinking about these things. The essay was a hit. I was exempted from freshman English.

This story has a point. Before I got to college, I had already developed above average writing skills. This served me well throughout high school and college — I aced almost every report and essay test question, mostly because I already knew how to organize and present my thoughts in writing far better than most other students.

These are the kinds of skills every writer needs to develop before beginning a writing career. If you want to be a writer, master the basics now.

Not a Blogger? Maybe You Should Be!

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If you read blogs, you can blog, too.

One of the hats I wear is the Webmaster hat for wickenburg-az.com. This is a Web site I started back in 1999 to provide information of interest to Wickenburg residents and visitors. A few years back, I converted it from straight HTML to a blog-based system utilizing WordPress. This makes it very easy to add new content, automatically archives old content by topic, and adds a great search feature.

wickenburg-az.com is a place for folks to share their own content. I have a number of regular contributors, as well as a few folks who just send new content for consideration when they have something to say.

Yesterday, I received two new submissions — a record for a single day. One was a piece by a woman — we’ll call her Jackie — who was deeply offended by something John McCain said in an Interview with Sarah Palin and Katie Couric. She wrote a short article that explained her views. I could tell by reading it that it was something she’d thought about, something that bothered her a lot. She wasn’t a Democrat latching onto yet another Republican faux pas to prove that Republicans weren’t fit to be in office. I got the feeling that she’d been a McCain supporter who felt betrayed by his recent behavior. This comment he’d made was the last straw.

I couldn’t put the article on wickenburg-az.com. Although the site does cover politics, it concentrates on politics at a much more local level. (Heaven knows that the politics in Wickenburg has enough scandal, cronyism, and blatant favoritism to keep us busy.) So I wrote to Jackie, told her that we couldn’t use it, and suggested that she submit it to the newspapers.

Jackie responded to say that she had and that no one seemed interested in printing it. She thanked me for my response — I may have been the only person to extend that simple courtesy.

That got me thinking…I’ve been blogging for nearly five full years now. (My first blog post was on October 15, 2003.) I’ve used my blog to share everything from boring stories from my life to opinions about politics and religion. If I have something to say, I say it here. I don’t try to submit it to newspapers or other Web sites. I have my own publishing outlet and you’re reading it: An Eclectic Mind.

So I wrote back to Jackie and suggested that she start her own blog.

Those of you who think there’s some kind of computer programming knowledge required to start and run a blog are seriously mistaken. If you have the equipment and skills to find and read a blog post on someone else’s blog, you have everything you need to start your own. Best of all, there are plenty of free blogging tools and services out there. My personal favorite is WordPress. Although I use the WordPress server installation, which does require an above average amount of computer know-how, WordPress.com is a free service that just about anyone can use.

Why haven’t I mentioned this before? Well, it’s mostly because I thought everyone already knew this. It wasn’t until I began this e-mail exchange with Jackie that I realized that there are people out there with something to say and no easy public outlet in which to say it. Blogging fills this purpose for me. Why can’t it fill this purpose for others?

Are you someone like Jackie? Someone with something to say to the world and no place to say it? Consider blogging.

Lynda.com WordPress CoverAnd at the risk of turning this into a commercial — which is not my intent — I invite you to check out the free sample lessons from the WordPress.com video I created for the folks at lynda.com. There’s enough there to introduce you to blogging so you can find out whether blogging is for you. There are also free lessons that cover the WordPreess.com setup process. That’ll get you started. WordPress isn’t difficult to use, so there’s a very good chance you won’t even need training material. (But if you do, I can’t say enough nice things about lynda.com materials.)

Blogging has become an important part of my life. It gives me an outlet to communicate what I’m doing and thinking to the world. So what if only a few hundred people read each blog post? I’m not writing for them as much as I’m writing for myself — to get what’s in my head out where it can be read by others.

Isn’t that what Jackie was trying to do when she submitted her article to wickenburg-az.com?