I'm still trying to adjust to life in a new office, so my postings might suddenly become sporadic over the next few weeks or so. I'm trying to find my groove as soon as possible, seeing that I've still got a computer studies textbook, a large-scale gaming event, and a couple of copywriting gigs to wrap up in the meantime.
What that means is that this month's disclaimer will have to come pretty straight. I figure that that might be the best thing to do at the moment, since I've been getting a few reports on literary ripoffs and plot thieves lately. This is not much of a surprise; I believe that this time of year sees a lot of students scrambling to submit their final treatises and a lot of media writers rushing their editorial proposals. I'm sure we all know that plenty of temptations abound.
There's a lot of content on this blog, and it's wide open for all Internet users to access and read. This is why I ask -- no, "demand" would be a better term -- that anyone perusing this blog be made aware of the following items:
- Everything written on this blog is completely original. This means that the unfortunate writer in this case (Sean) invested hours -- sometimes days -- of his time putting these articles together from scratch. As a result, these posts reference a lot of personal viewpoints, complex analyses and literary approaches.
- The only exception to the above comes in the form of quotations and references from other sources, which are occasionally used to supplement articles or otherwise provide them a base to stand on. These references are always noted along with the articles themselves; If you own one of these references and do not feel that I have not given you proper acknowledgement, feel free to contact me so that we can negotiate.
- You are welcome to use anything on this site for your own purposes, as long as you contact me for permission before doing so. I am not an unreasonable man, and I am not likely to ask for any compensation so long as your intended uses are free and justified. If you utilize any of this site's contents, however, then you must include a reference to their originator (that's me) via this blog.
- I reserve the right to deny any intended uses of my work, including but not limited to use in disreputable publication, spurious opinion, informal research, or out-of-context quotation. I have a particular bone to pick with that last one: I do not appreciate the idea of my words being twisted around to say something against my own beliefs or potentially harm other people.
- I have a Creative Commons License placed on the bottom of the right-hand sidebar to provide me with some international backup on potential issues. I encourage people to have a look at its terms and general legalese for a more comprehensive view of what we can and can't do.
- Finally, I don't care who you are or how you think blogs should be treated: If you take anything from this site without my foreknowledge, I will seek justice in the form of: a) Demands to remove the offending content from any site or publication that is using it; b) Just compensation in any form, shape or size of my choosing; c) Legal process or litigation; d) Any other creative means I can think of... and I assure you that I'm a very creative person.
Generally, however, all that plagiarists normally do is compound my sadness. We're all perfectly capable of writing our own masterpieces, after all. So why go as far as to steal somebody else's second-rate stuff? We should know that we can do it on our own, and that we can do it better than anyone else.
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