It has come to my attention that nobody (as far as I know) has stolen anything from this blog yet.
That means that either these disclaimers have been more effective than I have ever dreamed, or that my writing just isn't worth stealing in the first place. I strongly suspect that it's the latter, although that may have more to do with my sense of self-improvement than anything else.
Whatever the case, I still put up these monthly disclaimers on a regular basis. It gives me something to do, I suppose, and it provides me a way by which I can arrest my feelings of insufficiency and morbid neurosis. Hopefully, these internal conflicts will mutate into a full-blown case of criminal psychosis within the next few years, so that I'll feel a lot less remorse when somebody finally plagiarizes something from this blog, the thieving scoundrel.
For now, however, I'm content to play the mild-mannered man. I make sure that almost everything written in this blog is clean and original (even the derivative, hackneyed posts), for one. In addition to that, I make constant references to various works outside my writing, and I make certain that each mention of these items notes the rightful author and title in some way. In the event that I forget to reference an owner in this regard, or in the event that I mention the wrong source for this purpose, the members of the audience are welcome to correct me. I monitor and make these changes as often as possible.
Of course, others are welcome to reference anything in this blog as long as they fulfill three requests of mine: First, that they directly request permission from me or place a reference to my name somewhere in the quotation; Second, that they do not quote me out of context; and Third, that they attempt to take the authorship of the quoted work away from me. That latter point includes those who place their names in the byline as well as those who argue that they were the direct influence of my work. If I write something based on somebody else's writings, you can be sure that I'll mention exactly who I'm talking about except in the most sensitive and criminal of revelations.
Now, let's see... does that cover everything? I suppose that, if anything's unclear to any of the potential plagiarists out there, the main Disclaimer on the right-hand column of this blog should explain things in far better detail.
That just leaves the threats, then. So I'll say this: If you steal any of my writings from this blog, then I'll track you down, corner you in a dark corner of your apartment, and rip your limbs off.
Okay, maybe not. I'm not strong enough to rip anybody's limbs off, much less win a one-on-one fight. For that matter, if I arrive at your apartment, I'm more likely to introduce myself in a low, whining voice and wait for you to slam the door in my face.
But I suppose that it's easy enough to hire a huge, hulking biker-type dude to do the job for me, in which case I'll just sit back and hold the alcohol. Because you just can't torture a human being without the alcohol. It's just wrong, man.
As always, it's the thought that counts.
2 comments:
at first, I used to be a bit turned off with your monthly disclaimers... I used to find them a bit mayabang... then it came to me the importance of protecting one's work. now, I love reading your disclaimers... it actually makes my day, I think. :)
Reiji: They're supposed to be a bit mayabang, yes. It's difficult to post something on personal copyright issues and not give people the impression that you're saying "It's mine! It's mine! You can't have it! Hwahahahahah!"
The disclaimers actually aren't necessary anymore, due to the existence of a Note of Ownership and the Creative Commons License. To be honest, the only reason why they're still coming up is because they're the only regular feature I've got at the moment. I might as well take the time to irritate people while I'm at it. :)
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