senryu : theft

casual thieving
plucking your words and pictures
my poem is not yours

senryu by M. Nakazato LaFreniere

Today, I saw one site who reposted my post and offered to give away my poem as a pdf and never asked me. Heads up — I have not given anyone any permission to give away single poems as pdfs on their website or blog. If you see a site doing so, let me know.

Casual thieving seems to be a way of life on the web.  Some people seem to think it’s ok to quote without attribution. I am including making a link to the original source as attribution but I think mostly people should go further and actually say where they got stuff from somewhere on the page if they copy or quote something.  The main reason is stuff moves but if you have a title and a name to go by, you can find a reference again.  Plus it’s nice to give people credit.

Copyright is from when you write, photograph, draw or whatever something. You don’t need the © symbol, the year or a statement of “all rights reserved”.  It’s yours from when you create it until your death plus 75 years. At least it is in the United States.  There may be some variances from country to country but almost all of them the © is no longer mandated.  Some countries have 100 years after death.

Reposting my post and linking it back to me is nice and all.  The problem is the person put a link under their copy of my post saying “click here to get this post in pdf” which is not so nice.  I saw he had also taken posts from a couple other poets so I emailed them.  I really don’t care if after harvesting people’s name and email, he gave them a different pdf or no pdf — he would still be using my poem to harvest emails without my permission — and if he is giving away my poem and picture on a pdf that just makes it worse because then it is stealing.

I feel like Gollum, “Mine, all mine.”  I know I don’t get paid for it but it’s the sweat of my brow.  Ok, maybe more like the sweat of my thoughts?  Ok, my sweaty thoughts.  Ewww.  Laughing.  But you know what I mean.  I like sharing.  I am likely to give away a pdf or two of my own but the main point of copyright is that it’s my poem and my choice.  And FYI just because I share something with everybody does not give anyone the license to steal it.  I dislike someone stealing.

So if you see someone making a pdf of my content and giving it away, let me know. I’ll let you know if I see someone giving away your stuff.