World Class Poetry Blog

Here’s some sage advice about copyrights from Robert Lee Brewer.

I’ve got to say, I find this to be a rather annoying practice myself, and I’m not a literary journal editor. If I were, I’d have this unspoken policy floating around in my head:

• If I see a copyright symbol or notice of any kind then the work automatically goes into a “slush” pile - a separate slush pile just for the copyright notices. I wouldn’t even read the work.
• I’d go through all other submissions the normal way and make my selections.
• If - and only IF - I felt like I didn’t have enough work included in the edition of my journal that I’m about to publish, then - and only then - would I even think about digging into that copyright “slush” pile.
• As a last resort, and again only IF I felt like I needed to add one or two more pieces to what I’m working on, I’d read through the slush pile as if reading the poems for the first time (ignoring the copyright symbols and notices) and pretend that they are normal submissions to be considered in the same manner as all others.
• Bear in mind that my “normal” consideration for a poem (when I was an editor) was this:
  1. Read the first line; if I like it, keep reading.
  2. Read the second line; if I like it, keep reading.
  3. Read the third line; if I like it, keep reading.
  4. And so on ad nauseam until I finished all of the poems
  5. Poems that I made it all the way through on would get a second reading, and a third if necessary. Each reading would consist of a critical looking for anything that might make me want to reject the poem. Bear in mind, I’m really looking for reasons to say ‘No’ and to get past me on any reading you have to make me read on without finding any red flags.
  6. Any poem that came “close” - that is, I didn’t read all the way through, but I at least approached a complete reading - I then gave a second chance, this time looking for anything that might cause me to give the poem a benefit of the doubt. Now I’m looking for reasons to say ‘Yes’ without selling out on my aesthetic.
  7. If I didn’t come close to a complete reading of a poem then it was tossed (about 90% usually).

You have to understand that editors are very busy people. There is always more work to do for very little pay, if any. Most writers don’t work nearly as hard on their creations as editors work on theirs, and it shows. If a poem doesn’t catch an editor’s attention on that first line, I wouldn’t expect the editor to read any further. Why should she? She has hundreds or thousands of other lines to read. Why waste one minute on an unworthy poem?

That’s why I’m always appreciative of comments from an editor. If you get a comment from an editor then you know he read your poem. No editor is going to comment on a poem if all he read was the first line. Of course, most editors don’t comment at all and that’s understandable. But some editors will, with exceptional work, write a word of thanks for the opportunity to read a certain poem or a word of encouragement to the poet to keep submitting work. I’ve received those notes and they are encouraging because I know that if a certain poem wasn’t right then my style is at least leaning in the right direction for that journal. I have an open door.

Back To Copyrights
Even now, when I see a blog or a website that has copyright information plastered all over it, I lose my synaptic nerve. What’s worse, is for an author, webmaster, or blogger to point out to me that their work is “protected” by Copyscape.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Copyscape. I use the service. But I do not feel compelled to let the whole world know that my words are copyrighted. For one thing, as Robert Lee Brewer points out, they are copyrighted the moment I put them down. I don’t need a notice to let people know my work is copyrighted. I own this blog. Don’t believe me? Check Whois.net. That should tell you right there that all the content on this blog, with the exception of visitor comments, is owned by me and therefore copyrighted with legal protections in a court of law. In other words, if I had to, I could defend my work in court using only the Whois information.

But that’s an aside. The likelihood of anyone stealing my work is so small that I’d waste more time worrying about it than I’d earn back defending it. Plus, even if I could prove that someone stole my work, I’d then have to prove that I was due some remedy for damages. What exactly is my work worth in terms of monetary value? Well, quite frankly, not much. I haven’t earned a dime from this blog, and most bloggers don’t earn a dime from theirs either. So where’s the damage?

I’m not saying that ne’er-do-wells have free license to steal content from blogs simply because bloggers don’t earn money from their content. There are other considerations. And I’m no attorney so don’t take any of this as legal advice. It’s simply my understanding of copyright law. But it is conceivable that if someone else did earn money from my content, which they stole, then I might be able to receive some compensation from them provided that I could prove they did steal my content. But would it really be worth it?

Why I Won’t Share Link Love
With The New York Times
I received a threatening letter one time from a content author of a web property owned by the New York Times. The property is a well known, popular property with a lot of information about a lot of different topics. I won’t mention its name, but it rhymes with clout, which is something most of its writers don’t have. They really have too much time on their hands and not enough in the cranial cavity to understand really what to do with it.

I am a ghostwriter of many commercial blogs (well, now I only ghostwrite a handful of them and manage a staff of writers who ghostwrite the rest). In all, I manage more than 40 company blogs. In the blogosphere, it is quite common to borrow a snippet of text from another website and link back to that site as the source. It’s called giving attribution. In the print world, you can’t do that; you have to give attribution by listing the source and depending on the type of source you are quoting and which style you have adopted for your research, you’ll give attribution in one of several ways. A link is not possible. Online, however, you can simply link to your source as a way of saying, “This is the original source of this work or the place where I have borrowed this text.” All other rules of fair use (opens a .pdf file) that have existed historically still apply.

In my role as ghostwriter (and often on this blog, if you have noticed), I will often borrow a snippet of text from a website or blog and comment on the snippet. I usually offer more commentary than the text that I borrow. I’ve only ever had one complaint in doing this - from the author of this content that I borrowed from the unnamed source. It was what I would consider fair use, and I believe any reasonable legal professional would as well. Nevertheless, the author of the content sent me a letter threatening to sick the dogs of the New York Times legal team on me if I didn’t remove her content from my client’s blog. Bear in mind, of course, that the letter actually went to my client, who forwarded it to me. We both agreed that she had way too much time on her hands.

So to shorten the story a bit, I didn’t feel like getting into a legal wrangle. I simply removed the content in question and resolved myself to never link to that property again. So I do not even link to any of the other information sources owned by the New York Times (with the exception of the Times’ website itself if I find a news story worthy of mention, and then I can usually find another source with the same story). I figure if the writers there are too stupid to bother themselves with understanding copyright and fair use laws then they won’t get any link love from me.

Does Copyright Matter?
Is the New York Times affected by my decision to never link to them again? Likely not. They probably don’t even know who I am. And likely don’t care. But that’s not the point. The point is, the Internet is a new medium and has its own rules. Of course, this doesn’t nullify the rules of decorum, good policy, and common sense that have existed in the off line world of print throughout Western civilization. But this isn’t print; the Internet is its own medium.

That said, copyright is still copyright. It matters. Ownership is ownership and authors and creators are owners of their own intellectual property. As an author and creator, I’d be a fool not to believe that. Still, authors and creators must weigh the small ideas with the big picture.

In all seriousness, what real difference does it make if some Yayhoo thousands of miles away likes a poem that I publish on this blog, or another piece of writing, and decides to re-publish it on his own website? As long as he doesn’t claim credit for it himself and notes that I am the author then all is fine, right?

I’d prefer that he link back to me as that is sort of a “payment” itself for the work that he uses, but if all he did was say “This piece of writing was done by Allen Taylor then I’d be happy that he acknowledged that.” If I was not satisfied with the way that my work was represented then I’d send a friendly note to the publisher explaining my concerns and ask for removal of my work or that problems noted be fixed. If that was unsuccessful then I might go a step further and try to get action through other means, but most people have far too much to do than worry about stealing other people’s content. It is so easy to come up with one’s own creations that taking the time to steal someone else’s just isn’t worth it. And that’s why I find these silly notices of “protections” a bit irritating. I wonder if I’m all alone.

A nice poem about teachers from an old master.

The Show Me State gets a poet laureate.

A small town poet laureate in the UK starts a blog.

From another poetry blog:

I did not allow myself time to ask permission to reprint any of his poems and so I can only provide short excerpts.

Just so you’ll know, you don’t need permission to reprint Longfellow’s poems. Anything published before 1923 in the U.S. is considered public domain. This is without restriction. Since he died in 1882, Longfellow is most definitely considered public domain. Besides, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.

Oh, by the way, check out “Song of Hiawatha.”