So, I'm flipping through my Google Reader today. I saw that Sweet Juniper! had a new post. Lately, I've been ignoring the "white yuppie moves to Detroit to be a stay-at-home dad and take pictures of book warehouses" blog because of my work and my own blogging, but something made me read it today.
What I found was this.
For those of you who usually ignore my hyperlinks, I'll summarize. It seems the blogger at the end of the jump, Kate, had written a somewhat successful blog (way more successful than this one). She wrote some very heart-felt posts about her life as a parent and the pain she felt from losing one of her twins due to the complications associated with a premature birth. I just started reading some of her posts and find it to be a pretty amazing blog. But I digress.
A friend of hers stumbles upon another blog. This blog is by a young, gay man, Cooper, who wants to be a parent so badly that he adopts a couple of children, one of them a dieing infant. Here's the kicker: He's lifted all if his content directly from Kate.
Kate confronts him (online), and before she can gather the evidence, Cooper deletes the blog. The story doesn't end there, but you get the picture.
My point for telling this cautionary tale is that you may want to slap a copyright message somewhere on your own blog. I realize most of us blog as a hobby, but I also know that a lot of you tell some great stories or have great formats. If anyone should be making money off your work, it should be you. And if making money's not your thing, no one else should be able to make money off of your intellectual property.
This blog doesn't make any money for me. I realized a while back that my fifty-hit-a-day blog wouldn't generate enough money if I were to ever get sued over slander or something. If I maintain it as my hobby, my homeowner's insurance would cover any lawsuits. So, a hobby it remains.
Regardless, I'm slapping a copyright statement to the right and at the bottom just in case. Who knows? Someone might want to steal my Kenny Chesney post or my many hipster rants. I doubt it, but I'm protecting my property nonetheless.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
It could happen to you
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3 comments:
Done. Thanks for reminding me. When I switched over to "new" blogger, I lost my little © note on p-d.
Oh, and I thought it'd be funny if I copyrighted my blog to you---as if I had copied your whole site and neglected to see that it was your name there. har har. how apropos. But then I sobered up and pwned my shizzle personally.
Btw, that dude out there stealing stuff? is a dick.
ouch. . .
Sorry, jdg. I meant no offense. Additionally, one could call my blog the "whiny guy who actually misses Ohio and complains constantly about the clean, well-educated, safe town in which he lives as he works a cake job his wife got him at the university." Even?
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