Time to Write

Piracy on ISSUU

ISSUU is a site where you can access a huge number of books and magazines. The problem is that many of them have been uploaded without the authorization of the author or publisher. 

What do the people posting your book get out of it? They can add links to their own sites, charge a reading fee, or place ads. Or they may just want to share. 

For instance, thanks to a reader of this blog, I learned that someone named Andrew Yi from Taiwan uploaded my book, Your Writing Coach, without permission from me or the publisher. I've now lodged a complaint but the first edition of the book has been up a long time and gotten 112 "likes" which suggests at least that number of people have accessed it on ISSUU.

I wonder whether ISSUU is at all concerned with who downloads what. Yes, you can upload your own book, but does ISSUU really think that McGraw Hill gave permission to Kamal Al-Dallam to upload "Business Writing and Communication"?

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of examples like this.

If you or someone you know has a book out, check ISSUU to make sure it's not being pirated there.

 

 

 

Plagiarism is rife on Amazon, featuring the amazing (fake?) Dr/Nurse/Radiologist Ben Moore

Beware if your book is successful on Amazon, it may become the target of very well organized plagiarists.

Fitness expert Ari Whitten described how he was ripped off within a very short time of the release of his book on red-light therapy. 

Rip-off artists quickly paid somebody to whip up a couple of poorly-written, poorly-edited (if edited at all) versions of his books with similar titles and covers, and a couple billed as a summary of his book. 

Not only that, but one of them contains dangerous, totally-made-up advice about how to use red-light therapy for healing.

You can get the full details here, it's worth a read: https://www.theenergyblueprint.com/book-plagiarized-need-help/

I've seen the "summary" scam quite a few times. Somebody gets a popular book, quickly puts together a list of the key points, often using the original author's end-of-chapter key points, creates a similar cover, and puts it on Amazon. 

THE AMAZING BEN MOORE, NURSE...DOCTOR...NUTRITIONIST...RADIOLOGIST

In this case, the book is called "Summary of Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy by Ari Whitten," which at first glance makes it look like Whitten wrote the summary, but it's actually by somebody who uses the probably fake name, "Ben Moore, RN"--presumably "registered nurse," although the "about the author" page says "Ben Moore is a globally known cardiologist"...hmm, registered nurse and cardiologist ain't the same thing. There are a couple of disclaimers but it's the cover that would grab most people.

Furthermore, on his Amazon author page, it says, "Ben Moore is fondly called 'Professor' by friends, colleagues and close associate [sic] is a Professional and experienced Registered Nurse (RN), an expert Nutritionist and a radiologist for 20 years." No mention being a cardiologist.

It also says, "He graduated with highest honors from Syracuse University where he received a second Bachelor's degree in radiology." Does it surprise you that there's no such degree? At the Bachelor's level, there is only "Pre-medicine," described as "a program that prepares individuals for admission to a professional program in medicine, osteopathic medicine, or podiatric medicine." Oops!

His description doesn't sound like it was written by someone for whom English was his first language: "The books he has written is a way of alleviating the society from ill health especially as regards internal organs. I admonish you to read each of them word by word and implement every information on a daily basis."

His author section also says "you can visit the website to enjoy his collections" [of articles}...but doesn't tell you the website. Nor is there a photo of the good Doctor, I mean, Nurse, in the spot reserved for that use.

The "Look Inside" feature doesn't reveal any internal pages other than the table of contents. 

Other than his rip-off summary of Whitten's book, he's published a red-light therapy "manual" of some fifty pages, probably also lifted from Whitten's book, and several ketogenic cookbooks. Recipes are easy to rip off, too. 

I wrote to Nurse/Dr. Moore, asking for clarification regarding his credentials and the address of his website, but so far I haven't had an answer. Then again, with that many areas of expertise he must be busy day and night.

Did James Franco cheat this screenwriter?

Almost every successful film or TV series gets sued by somebody who claims they had the idea first and it was stolen. Most of these cases are without merit, but one that's just been filed may be the real thing.

It concerns the film The Disaster Artist, which was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The credited writers, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, say they based their script only on the book The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room.

Ryan Moody, a former acting student in a class taught by James Franco, says Franco asked him to write a script based on that book and promised him an associate producer credit.

Moody delivered a script and was paid $5000. Then Neustadter and Weber were brought in and no credit was given to Moody, who is now suing Franco's and Seth Rogan's companies.

Moody has emails showing that Franco asked him to write the script and to travel to Vancouver to pitch the project to Seth Rogan's company.

It's possible that Franco didn't like Moody's version, paid him off, and never showed that script to the new writers.

Because both scripts were based on a book, the fact that they may have very similar scenes won't be evidence that Moody's material was stolen. That would be the case only if something he invented in his script also showed up in the later script.

However, that still leaves the issue of what, if anything, Franco promised Moody. Certainly, $5000 was not in itself a great reward for writing a script, whether or not it was ever used.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

The best protection is to make sure you get everything in writing.

If something is promised to you in a meeting or in a phone call, follow up with an email saying something like, "I just wanted to confirm that our agreement is that in return for writing this screenplay I will be paid $5000 and get an Associate Producer credit if the film is made."

Even if they don't answer, their silence will imply consent--but it's better to press for an answer because they may say they never received the email. 

Of course, also save all emails you send or receive in regard to the project.

It's also a good idea to have a deal memo that incorporates the most likely possible outcomes. I don't know whether Moody had any arrangement for what more he'd be paid if the project went forward with his script, but he should have.

He also should have had a clause indicating what would happen if the project went forward but not based on his work.

That would have protected both him and Franco, rather than throwing the whole thing into the arms of expensive lawyers.

 

How to avoid being scammed by people like this guy

Author and TV producer Lee Goldberg has a post on his blog about James Strauss, a "convicted con artist and fake TV writer."

Goldberg has received many emails with horror stories from people saying they've been conned or harassed by Strauss.

A recent one was from a young filmmaker asking whether he should do free work for Strauss in exchange for help breaking in to the business. Since Strauss has zero real Hollywood experience and has stiffed screenwriters, conference organizers, and many others, the answer is a loud NO.,

In 1998 Strauss pleaded guilty to defrauding a teachers' retirement fund out of $400,000. He was sentenced to 21 months. In addition he was accused of embezzling more than $20,000 from a Santa Fe Business while out on pre-release from the other case. 

Unfortunately, there are many like him out there, swindling aspiring writers and others. 

HOW TO AVOID BEING SCAMMED

If you are unsure about anybody offering you services like matching you with producers or publishers, public relations, promotion, editing, publishing help, etc. do your homework before you hand over money or agree to work for free! Here's what to do:

1: Google their name, the name of their company and anything else you know about them. Go past the first page of results. Smart crooks often set up fake websites full of endorsements for themselves, but under different names.

Many times they'll have a headline like, "Is X a scam?" and in the body of the site say, of course not! They use SEO to drive these sites to the top of Google results, pushing genuine sites down to page 2 or 3 or 4.

In the case of a bogus publisher, I Googled the names of the books they had supposedly published and none were listed on Amazon, nor did any of the alleged authors have websites.

2: If they feature endorsements, follow them up. Ask for complete names and contact details. If all you can get is quotes like, "X got me a big Hollywood deal!" -- Annette F., Detroit...well, that's not enough!

It's true that some people who give an endorsement don't like to give their full names and email addresses but the person in question should be able to give you at least a few who are willing to be contacted via email.

3: If the endorsements also feature photos, do a reverse image search.

First, go to http://images.google.com/ and click on the camera button and upload the image (you can usually click and drag it off the page on the person's website). Or you can drag and drop it into the search blank on the Google image search page.

Then also use TinEye, the simple instructions are at www.tineye.com. Both are free to use and sometimes an image source pops up on one but not on the other.

If you're dealing with a con artist, the image may turn out to have been sourced from a stock image site. That turned out to be the case with one subsidy publisher I looked into a couple of years ago.

4: Ask for specifics. For instance, if they say they can get you in the door at a studio, ask whom they deal with there--who is their contact?

That may be enough to scare them off.

If they're brazen they may say, "Spielberg, of course!" Don't be afraid to email that supposed contact, tell them what you've been told and ask if they have a relationship with the person making the claims.

5. Spread the word. If you find somebody is deceiving people, spread the word via your blog, Facebook, other social media and to relevant groups (like writing groups) and organizations.

Be sure to stick to the facts. Don't say, "X is a  con artist and fraudster!" Instead, say, "X offered to connect me with producer Y, yet when I got in touch with Y I was told they have never heard of X." Or, "The pictures of supposed satisfied clients on X's websites turn out to be stock photos purchased from iStock."

The reason for being careful to stick to the facts is that scam artists often like to threaten lawsuits. I had a few threatening letters from Tate Publishing, for instance, before they went bust and two of the principals were arrested. But because I'd stuck to the facts, there was nothing to sue me about.

Usually they're bluffing, but getting into even a bogus lawsuit is no fun. The facts should be damning enough. The reason I can characterize James Strauss as a con artist is that he's been convicted of embezzlement. Is he still conning people right now? I don't know but I'd sure avoid getting involved with him in any way, based on his past and the continuing complaints.

Let the buyer beware!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beware fake ransomware, and tips for being safer online

Probably you've read about ransomware, malware that encrypts all of the data on your computer, followed by demands for payment to restore your files.

An article in the Guardian estimated that 40% of businesses have been affected by it.

Paying up is no guarantee that you'll actually get your files back and may make you the target of further attacks. Law enforcement has been relatively ineffective in catching the attackers, who often are thousands of miles away.

PANIC!

The other day I thought it was my turn. A window popped up saying that unless I called the phone number in the window, all my data would be destroyed. I wasn't able to close that window nor to close the browser.

FAKE RANSOMEWARE--AND THE SOLUTION

Panic, especially since I thought I was protected by using a program called Bitdefender (which I recommend).

However, before doing anything, I looked up ransomware on my iPad and discovered that in some cases the demand is a fake and the information on the computer has not been affected. It's just a pop-up window and while you can't close it in the normal way, if you use the "force quit" command to close the browser and then open it again but without restoring the tabs you had open, you're back in business.

That, fortunately, is exactly what happened.

I have been using both Safari and Chrome; it seems to me that lately a lot of unwanted material is coming up when I use Chrome. I don't know whether others have had the same experience. 

HACKED TWICE THIS YEAR

My sites have been the target of hackers twice in the past year. The first time, they took over my sites and posted weird images and a "tag" similar to the signage favoured by gangs. I don't think they targeted me specifically, my sites just happened to be among the many they took over.

I changed servers and had an expert increase the security settings, but several of the sites were hacked again, this time by criminals who used them to create home pages that looked like the home pages of banks and credit card companies and tried to get people to give up their banking details. 

I've had the expert install even more security, but it seems that it's difficult, if not impossible, to be totally safe. Such attacks mean the sites are unavailable, and restoring them can be expensive. There's also a feeling of violation not unlike coming home and finding that someone has broken in. 

TIP 1: CHECK THE ORIGIN OF EMAILS

By the way, if you get any emails that might not be genuine, check the full address from which the message was sent. Often a message that supposedly is from your bank turns out to have originated from an address like "odie1barclays." A fake message I got recently about a book not being delivered was from somebody at "Amazn.com".

The more sophisticated con artists are more clever than that, but quite a few depend on us being too busy to make even rudimentary checks.

TIP 2: USE AN ALTERNATIVE BROWSER FOR IMPROVED PRIVACY

If you don't like the idea of your browser tracking your every move, consider DuckDuckGo. Unlike most others, they don't keep a record of your internet activity. You can find out more at DuckDuckGo.com.

TIP 3: DO ONLINE AND OFFLINE BACK-UPS

Of course you should be backing up all of your files, and to be extra secure it makes sense to back up onto the cloud and also onto a storage device. 

External hard drives have become very small and cheap now or you can still back up onto DVDs. However, to be totally safe you'd need to disconnect the drives when not actually backing up. Otherwise, apparently hackers can target connected external drives as well. 

THE NEW REALITY

It seems that whether it's the US presidential election or our modest little websites, the internet is another front that requires us to be alert. I'm not an expert on any of this, just sharing what's happened to me in case you might find something useful in it. If in doubt, do a detailed internet search for fuller information and advice.

 

A better formula for creating your passwords

A mistake people make when changing their password is just changing one element or adding one character to their current password. Apparently, hackers program for that.

A better option is to have your password made up of four unrelated words, like this:

Bunnygymfocuselevator

You can remember it by creating an image: picture a bunny going to a gym and it's blurry but what suddenly comes into focus is an elevator. 

Of course, if you have lots of sites with passwords, remembering different combinations for each one gets harder.

Instead of writing down the actual passwords, you could do it with doodles like this:

If those fell into the wrong hands the person finding them probably wouldn't be able to figure out the passwords.

However, if you look at your pictorial clues after not used it for a while you might think the password is rabbitbarbellmagnifyinglift.

Or you can use password software. I'm using Dashlane and so far I'm happy with it.

Could your blog vanish without a trace?

What if you woke up one morning to find that your blog had disappeared? 

Do you have it backed up? 

Are you sure?

I read about an artist to whom this happened and not only didn't he back up his blog, it was the only place he'd saved some of his work.

If you use WordPress, there are various plug-ins that allow you to save the blog's contents and download it to your computer or the cloud. You can search "WP back-up plug-ins" to find them.

There's also a quick and easy-to-use Mac app called SiteSucker. I have it load the back-up into my DropBox account for extra protection.

This blog is on the Typepad platform and wasn't attacked recently when all my WP sites became the target of hackers, but no site is totally safe. If you think your blog is being backed up automatically but you're not sure, it's worth checking. 

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To stay safe on the internet, lie

Here's a good strategy for making it less likely that hackers will be able to access your password by guessing the answers to your security questions: lie.

I read that the hacker who got into Hilary Clinton's account had a strategy for figuring out people's security questions (which are designed to show that a request to change an account's password is really coming from the person who owns it).

For the question, "What was the name of the street where you lived as a child?" he went on Facebook to find out where the person went to school, went to a map, and tried out all the names of streets in the vicinity of that school.

Often the question is, "What was the name of your first pet?" and sometimes people post childhood pictures on Facebook or other social sites ("Me at 10, with Fluffy").  

The solution is to lie on your security questions.

The name of your first pet? Kim Kardashian

The street where you lived as a child? ScrewYouHackers Avenue

Your favorite vegetable? Donald Trump

You get the idea.

PASSWORDS

Of course you shouldn't use the same password for more than one site, and it's wise to change the passwords occasionally.

I'm trying out a password app at the moment, the simplest one I've found, and if it works well, I'll report back here.

SAFE HOSTING

As you may have read in one of my previous posts, all my sites were hacked recently.

The hackers didn't use passwords, they gained backdoor access to the server on Hostgator.

Most of the sites are now back up, but it has been very disruptive. As I result, I've done some research on the best ways to help you avoid falling prey to this kind of attack. I've moved to a different hosting company and a different approach. I'm still testing those at the moment, but I'll report on those here, too, in case you may find the information useful.

 

Related articles

Beware this hacker trick to get your information

Hacker who says he breached Clinton server finalizing plea deal

Scams to beware

The nightmare of being hacked--and one precaution to take

Today almost all of my websites were hacked by an Indian hacker. He removed all of the content and put a rant on one of the home pages about people hacking Indian websites. 

My hosting is with Hostgator, and they have a backup service...but what I didn't realize is that there is a limit to the amount of data they back up. I hope there's a way around this but at the moment it seems that if you go over that limit, they don't back up any of your data. I recommend that you check your hosting service's policy to make sure you don't end up in a similar position.

If you have subscribed to my online screenwriting course, that site is also down but I have the files and will reconstruct it if we can't restore it. That would take some time, and I appreciate your patience.

I have a tech person looking into this to see if there is a solution. 

Yesterday, an emergency root canal, today this...Tomorrow...well, maybe something good for a change!

Roundup: An ugly word; Nicely written; Online security tip

AN UGLY WORD

Here's a word I hope doesn't catch on, as used in Entrepreneur magazine:

"When new hires are onboarded at iCracked..."

When they're fired, are they made to walk the plank?

NICELY WRITTEN 

Written by Joan Acocela in The New Yorker in a review of Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games

"There is a certain kind of theatrical spectacle at loose today--think Cirque du Soleil or the Olympics opening ceremony--that unites such things as videos of white stallions, great belches of flame, and what look to be projections of H-bomb tests with squads of women who appear to hail from cosmetics ads. To judge from the song lyrics, all the people involved have a 'dream,' and it eventually comes true, for optimism is as central as hyperbole to this genre."

ONLINE SECURITY TIP

A lot of sites use "What was the name of your first pet?" as a security question. The problem is that we tend to be pretty unimaginative in naming our first pets, so it's not hard for hackers to get a match if they run a list of typical pet names. I've forgotten where I've read this tip, but the suggestion was to make your answer the name of your favorite author instead. The odds are small that hackers will have Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut or Margaret Atwood on their list of pet names.

LEAST COMPELLING CONTEST PRIZE OF THE MONTH

"Win a fact-finding forest trip to a European paper mill" ...(but if this does excite you, go to www.twosides.info/competition).

Art, theft, or both? And the confidence of misinformation

You may have read by now about artist Richard Price. He took a screenshot of a post from Instagram that included somebody's photo and several comments, added a comment of his own, blew it up to a much larger size, printed it out on a big canvas...and sold it for $90,000. Actually, he did this with a bunch of posts and sold all of them for around that much each, through a gallery.

He didn't ask for the permission of the people who created or were pictured in the posts or whoever took the pictures, and has stated even if they'd said no, he would have done it anyway. 

Isn't this a violation of copyright, or misappropriation of somebody's image? His position is that by making changes to the original (adding his comment, blowing it up, including not only the image of the person but also some of the Instagram site around it), he has transformed it into a new work, one that makes an artistic statement (although I couldn't tell you what that he thinks he's saying with it. other than 'KerChing!').

THE CONFIDENCE OF MISINFORMATION

Normally I don't read the comments that follow articles because they tend to confirm my worst suspicions about human nature. However, I was interested to find out what other people thought.

The opinions ranged from 'it's legal so I don't see anything wrong with it,' to 'he should be strung up in public.' What was more interesting, though, was the confident way in which people presented information that was totally wrong.

For instance, one wrote, "The person doesn't have the copyright on her photo. To get copyright, you have to register the work and pay a fee. Otherwise, it's fine for anybody to use it in whatever way they want."

As you may know, that's totally wrong. You get copyright the moment you take a photo, paint a painting, or write a short story or novel. Yes, it can be helpful to register your material with the Copyright Office. For one thing, it helps you prove when you created it, should you take legal action against somebody who you think stole your material. 

I won't get into all of them here, but there were a host of other apparently factual statements about copyright, trademarks, and intellectual property that the people commenting expressed as facts; in some cases they reacted indignantly when they were corrected by others (including lawyers who specialize in this kind of law).

I'm thinking of taking a screenshot of those comments, blowing them up, printing them on canvas and calling it The Confidence of Misinformation. I'll charge $90,000 but if you get in early I might consider a discount. 

 

 

 

Beware of traps in publishing contracts

Sometimes writers who are offered a publishing contract are so happy that somebody wants to publish their work that they don't look carefully enough at the fine print.

One aspect you want to check is what kind of editorial control you are giving up. Victoria Strauss has a great post about this on the Writer Beware blog:

http://www.victoriastrauss.com/2015/02/12/editing-clauses-in-publishing-contracts-how-to-protect-yourself-2/

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Author Translation (from Spanish to rude)

How the concept of plagiarism is getting lost

Business Insider interviewed Chris Scott, who came up with a funny tweet that was re-Tweeted thousands of times, often without attribution.

People changed the wording slightly and then sent it out as their own.

One comedian even accused him of stealing the joke, claiming he'd said it on TV. When challenged to be specific about when he'd said it, he withdrew the accusation and apologized.

What I find most interesting is Scott's interpretation of the phenomenon:

"It's a genuinely fascinating and foreign concept to me, to see something that you connect with on some level and then decide, 'Well, that's mine now.' My hunch is there's a sizable chunk of people who don't really grasp what plagiarism is or why it's wrong, and they kind of regard Twitter and social media as this giant free-for-all where everybody's just constantly taking and posting whatever they want from whoever they want."

One could argue that since people are not benefitting financially from their Tweets (nor are those who are plagiarising them), this is not such a big deal. What is a big deal, though, is that this attitude spreads easily to appropriating content in general, including going to pirate sites to download material that is essential to the financial survival of the people who created it. 

I don't know whether this attitude can be reversed, but writers and other creators will need to find a way to deal with it. Many musicians have turned to live performance as their primary source of income, but I don't think too many people will pay us to read our novels to them.

How to have a best-selling novel...without writing a word

I get some interesting blurbs in my email but this is a new one: an offer (not to me specifically, I'm just on their mailing list, via Publisher's Weekly) to "co-author a book with a New York Times best-selling author." Guess what? we can do this without even writing a word:

• You Don't Need To Have A Manuscript Yet - Work with Wahida's Team to select one of her existing manuscripts in the fiction romance niche.

The best-selling author making this offer is Wahida Clark. I'd never heard of her but her books include Every Thug Needs a Lady, Payback With Ya Life, and Payback is a Mutha. According to her site she has been crowned the queen of street literature. She served nine and a half years in prison and now runs a publishing company. 

THE MISSING "CONGLOMERATE" BEHIND HER COMPANY

On Wahida Clark's web site, www.wclarkpublishing.com, it says "W. Clark Publishing is a subsidiary of Green and Company LLC, a publishing conglomerate and literary agency."

Strange, then, that a Google search for this conglomerate turns up only one item:  a Better Business Bureau note that the company was located in Ogden, Utah, but that it is no longer in business.

The web site listed for it by the BBB is www.green-company.com.

That url is now for sale.

Isn't is strange that Ms. Clark doesn't mention the disappearance of her parent company? Then again, her site seems not to have been updated since 2012.

A GUARANTEED FIVE-FIGURE CHECK?

The email (emphasis mine) says, 

"What if there was a way to guarantee that your book would sell thousands of copies putting your name in the spotlight and earning you a five figure check? Would You Take It? If the answer is YES! Then now you have an opportunity right now to do it! www.nytbestsellerpartner.com"

The lowest five figure amount is $10,000. Let's assume for a moment that they mean the word "guarantee" in the statement above. The royalty split is 50/50, so the book would have to earn $20,000 in royalties. 

But wait--if we don't even need to write a word, why should they be looking for partners at all? Why not publish the book themselves and keep 100% of the royalties? Probably because they want us to put up money in advance to cover their services: creating a cover, formatting the book for digital, etc.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST US TO MAKE $10,000...OR WILL WE?

I wonder whether it might cost us more than the guaranteed profit to "co-author" with Ms Clark, assuming that the contract does guarantee that return (which would be unusual--nobody can predict how many copies a book will sell, unless they plan to buy the copies themselves).  

Ms. Clark is not ready to tell us about fees until we follow these procedures: 

#1: Sign Up Using The Add To Cart Button And Make Your Good Faith Payment. ($99)
#2: You will Receive your Login and Password - Login 
#3: Read Through The Confidentiality Agreement - You will need to Accept The Terms and Conditions
#4: Fill in your Contact information page
#5: Schedule a meeting time with Wahida and her Team.
#6: Hang On and Enjoy The Ride!

The question is, will we be taking a ride...or taken for a ride?

 SALES STRATEGIES 101

The $99 Good Faith payment is fully refundable, but it means that before you find out how much money they want to charge you, you will already have taken an active step toward working with them (see Robert Cialdini's excellent book, Influence, to read about how getting people to take a small tangible first step increases the liklihood that you will agree to much bigger steps later).

You also will have signed a confidentiality agreement (which, I'm guessing, will say you promise not to reveal the terms and conditions of their offer).

Finally, you'll be talking to Wahinda herself:

• Your $99 Payment is a good faith payment and you will be interviewed by Wahida - if we can work together then awesome if not your payment is immediately refunded.

Salespeople know that it's easier to make a sale when you've got somebody on the phone and I bet Wahida has a good salesperson or two on her Team. I wouldn't be too surprised if you get called by a Team member rather than Wahida--she sounds like a busy lady.

THE BOTTOM LINE

I'm not suggesting that this offer is a scam; there's not enough information in the pitch to evaluate that. However, any "co-authoring" opportunity that doesn't require you to do any writing needs to be looked at very closely. 

I'm checking with Victoria Strauss, the "Writer Beware" expert in con tricks that target authors, to find out whether she's heard of this particular offer and give her opinion.

I'm also going to email Publisher's Weekly to ask whether they looked into the details of this offer before allowing their marketing mailing list to be used for it.

Stay tuned!

 

Writers, "fair use" is in the eyes of the beholders (and their lawyers)

In copyright law,“Fair use” means that you can use excerpts of articles, books, and other creative works in the course of reviewing them, or in educational materials, or in a transformative way, meaning you change the nature of the final product. However, you are limited in how much of the original work you can use, and also by whether or not your use of the excerpt might take away from the creator’s ability to benefit financially from his or her work.

There are no hard and fast rules about how much of the original you can quote or use, it’s down to common sense (and sometimes the courts). For instance, if you quote 100 words of an article that’s only 150 words long, that would be an abuse of fair use. If you quote 100 words of a novel that’s 75,000 words long, you’d probably be fine.

Song publishing companies are especially touchy and quick to sue. Quoting even one line of lyrics in a novel has led some of them to demand what I think are outrageous payments, with the threat of a lawsuit if you don’t pay.

Another example is a tumblr blog called “This Charming Charlie,” where the author, graphic designer Lauren LoPrete, matches images from the Peanuts comic strip with lyrics from songs by the Smiths. One example: Charlie Brown in bed in the dark bedroom, saying “Last night I dreamt that somebody loves me.” The strips aren’t that different from what Charles Schultz wrote; Charlie Brown (or the late Charles Schulz, who drew the strip) and Morrissey seem to be soul mates.

The blog took off very quickly, now boasting more than 24,000 followers. Of course the fact that it was mentioned in Rolling Stone, Gawker, Time magazine, Huffington Post, Slate, and others didn’t hurt.

It’s not a profit-making venture, it came about because LoPrete loves both the music of the Smiths and Peanuts. 

However, Universal Music Publishing Group (which owns the rights to the music and lyrics) has served LoPrete with notices alleging copyright infringement. Although she is claiming fair use, she also has written on the blog, “I know it’s over.” 

It’s not quite on the order of the time Disney lawyers went after a pre-school that had painted some Disney characters on their wall, but from a public relations standpoint it’s a disaster. 

How was this hurting them? With all that coverage it’s more likely that it reminded some people that they liked the Smiths. 

Instead, people who may have been on the fence about music piracy or those already into it can point to this as another example of how the big corporations don’t care about anything but squeezing every last penny out of their products. 

For writers, the message is beware of music publishers and their lawyers.

PS: Here's my version. To be on the safe side, I'm quoting Kafka, who isn't that far from Peanuts and The Smiths...