2000-09-06 - 19:48:12 Longest Entry Ever (and Copyright Bonus!) How sad do you have to be to copy someone else's diary and claim it as your own? I've been flipping through diaries, and noticed two... well, very similar ones. But I don't remember the address of the first one, really, so I can't prove they've been copying. Who knows? There are a thousand other explanations, anyway. For example, it could be the same person with two journals. It happens. The only reason I even think of the other possibility is that I actually knew someone once, who had her diary cut-and-pasted. Nobody could figure it out. The perpetrator didn't even bother changing the names, or anything. Why do that? Is your own life so boring that you can't think of ANYthing to write, and you have to pretend to have someone else's? Get a hobby. Not stealing other people's work, either, I mean a new and interesting hobby. And there's always copyright law to think about. Lots of people think that if it's on the Internet, it's FREEEEEE! But nothing could be further from the truth. Everything (in the US, your laws may be different) is copyrighted the minute it gets written down. My EMAIL is copyrighted; technically, if someone fowards my email without my permission, that's against the law. Not that I wouldn't be laughed out of court if I tried to sue over it, but the law would be on my side. Other people say oh, it's ok as long as you're not making any money off of it - not true either. Still copyrighted. If I wrote a book, and someone else started giving it away for free, that's cutting into my potential profit - one of the main reasons the laws are there in the first place. My work, my words - mine. No giving them away. Does this seem strange on a site that's nothing but the words of other diarists? Maybe. Everything I use falls under "fair use". You're allowed to take small quotes for all sorts of purposes, as long as you're not claiming the work to be your own. And I'm not. Even so, if someone said hey, that's mine, so take it down, I would. No need to sue me, nosirree. [BIG DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer. I don't even know any lawyers. I do live down the street from a lawyer, but saying "hi" once a month or so doesn't count as deep learning in the law. Nothing I say should be construed as legal advice. For all you know, I'm lying. (But I'm not - go read up, copyright law is fascinating, really). Or I'm just wrong, which is entirely possible.] From Cubicle Girl (via Mangledoll) The world just makes more sense in the fall. From Ginger (via LoneRanger) i don't like doing ta-math-social-lunch-chem-english, i don't like being hearded around like a nameless faceless numbered cow, moving ((mooving)) when the bell rings. From Midnite Lamp every day i'm in raleigh i hear the bell tower ring. i found out last year that there aren't even any bells, just speakers. From Orchidlove (via Queerscribe) I feel responsible for saying "bless you" to everyone that sneezes, so much so that I say it under my breath instead of outloud. Especially since it's usually someone sneezing across the room and I don't know them. It's just that I go crazy wanting to bless everyone that it just creates a problem for me. From Tawny (via Queerscribe) My new doctor was obese. And reeked of cigarette smoke. I felt like this was similar to going to restaurant with a skinny chef. "Most people" can screw off and rot in their caves. And if they don't have caves, well then they're just shitouttaluck. From Evelynne Yes, we're old farts. We've accepted it, and moved on. You can poke fun at us all you want, but we have just as much fun as anyone else, just earlier in the day and at less expense. From Schmez (via NotAHillBilly) "Um, SuperVirgin, I don't know how to tell you this, but Tim has smallpox, and I've fallen in love with a 900-lb Samoan named Ooka, and we're all moving to Fiji to nurse Tim through his last days, so if you could please get your entertainment center and your negativity out of the house by November 1st, that would be really super...thanks." From Gaja (via Waterbelle) That's right, she's so completely pure that you could eat off her. While we were in the medicine aisle of the drugstore, I realized that some medicines are rather atrociously named. For example, Anusol. I guess the marketing staff just figured that no one would ever feel okay about buying ointment for their asshole, so they might as well make the purchase as painful as humanly possible. From Return Sender (via Pix) and you, my readers, should never wonder why i'm so anti-social. it's because i have to consider all the options before i do something. it gets so annoying and pointless, i'd rather do nothing than choose.
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