Writing on the Internet

I was reading an article yesterday that a magazine took some recipes from a blog and used them in their magazine without permission and without even giving the author credit. Since, the author thought she did her homework by copyrighting her blog and she was already a published author she demanded a retraction which included an apology and a donation to PEN. The magazine refused and said that anything published on the Internet was up for grabs and that the author should be glad that the magazine did not put someone else's name on it.

All writers steal. But we take ideas and incorporate them into our own and adapt them and make them our own. It is a different matter for a magazine to just steal from a writer and plunk it down in their publication. It is still a rare occurrence. It does happen. I was aware that everything I write on these blogs is gone forever and that is why I don't put original poetry or stories out there on the Internet. I don't feel like giving away my creative efforts.

Poets, don't put your poems on those poetry pages. You have lost them for good. You can't even give them away with your name. They are gone for good. Someone told me that getting a book of poetry published and waiting for a profit is like tossing a penny into the Grand Canyon and waiting to hear it hit bottom. Still, it is never a good idea to give it away so someone else can put their name on it because there are a huge hosts of wannabee writers and poets who would do it. Trust me it has happened to me too.

There was a well known actor who took a screen play and made a movie that was very successful and paid nothing to the screen writer. He thought he could get away with it, but the screen writer was also a well known journalist and knew a very good attorney and he sued and won.

No writer should put his sweat and effort into something and then put it on the Internet. No matter if you can't get it published some other way. Keep it in a drawer and send it out again some other way. The magazine that stole that writer's work was outed and it was a little known magazine. It got an enormous black eye. It did it to another writer and this time it lifted something that was copyrighted the correct way and before it was put on the Internet. Lawyers will get involve this time.