Copyright Policy

Your rights

One of the crushing inevitabilities of blogging is that you’ll always steal content, even without noticing. Of course, this is accepting the broadest assumption of “stealing” - if I republish your article, even attributing it to you, this is still technically copyright theft, because I haven’t asked. I don’t post them often, but photos are even trickier.

Now, while I don’t intellectually respect copyright law - it’s outmoded, doesn’t really make sense and especially not in the context of blogging - it at least deserves a sense of obligation, given no-one wants to be thrown in prison for something that can be settled with a quick email.

If you want to settle a problem concerning your content on this site quickly, follow these steps to get it resolved quickly:

• If I haven’t attributed you as the author, send me an email with the subject header ATTRIBUTION ISSUE, and in the body include:
  - A link to the post on this site;
  - Proof that the content belongs to you (a link usually suffices, as 90% of the content I repost comes from another website, but if this doesn’t apply (due to it being a physical work of art, etc. include some explanation)
  - What your content is licensed under - i.e. Copyright, Creative Commons, etc.
  - Your name or organisation as the rights holder, and the year it was created.
• If you want your content removed, send me an email with the subject header REMOVAL ISSUE, and in the body include:
  - A link to the post on this site;
  - Proof, as above;
  - Your name as the rights holder (I need to demonstrate who takedown notices come from, as it appears incongruous if pages go missing, and sometimes your work might feature as part of a longer post).

Random cease-and-desists will usually be ignored, unless the copyright is obvious (as in music).

My rights

I’m a great guy, and that’s why I’m using a Creative Commons licence for the vast majority of this site. By vast majority, I mean content produced by me in the context of blogging. As about 15% of the content on this site isn’t produced by me, it’s nonsensical to try and distinguish, but try and use your common sense.

There are two catches to the licence I’m using: one, you can’t sell my stuff (Non-Commercial) and two, you’ve got to attribute. I’m incredibly lax about this - as I’m aware, Tumblr is a community of rebloggers, but it’s also a good thing that most themes have linkbacks to the original poster in-built. This is enough - though obviously I’d prefer an actual name reference if it’s something worth reading, and this is essential if you’re posting it on another site.

The one exception to this rule concerns works of fiction published on this site. And here, again, while I ask you to use your common sense, the more obvious ones are on my Writing page. There are others. Without exception, works of creative fiction are under copyright law, because it’s the only discernible way I can think of protecting my work and making it even remotely financially viable.