STATEMENTS OF COPYRIGHT

Copyright

Exceptions

Disclaimer

Unofficial Statement of Copyright

I am aware that on the Internet, written material from Web pages is frequently e-mailed around, posted on message boards, and generally circulated outside the original page. Ordinarily, the author wouldn't object to the free publicity, but in circulation the author's name tends to be dropped ("I can't remember who wrote the twenty-five pages of text I'm posting here, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind . . ."), thereby preventing him or her from receiving credit for the work. Generally it keeps getting circulated ad infinitum, with senders and receivers making their own changes to the work. Sometimes it is posted on another Web page with someone else's name attached as the author!

Not to defend another type of copyright infringement, but the authors of such pieces are not the million-dollar music artists of Napster. In the unlikely event that we do make money from writing for the Web, it still isn't a lucrative business. We do it for the love of writing and we publish it on the Web because we think people would like to read it, a fact the unofficial circulation clearly indicates. But it is depressing when we see our work taken out of our hands, changed and tinkered with, and when we lose credit for what is often genuinely hard work (A side note: if anyone tries to foist off on you the myth that writing isn't hard work, please approach whoever is telling you this, grab him by the throat and shake some sense into him. Professional writing is an occupation that requires you to spend hours with either a blank page or computer screen, start pounding out words from utter silence and not stop till the drops of blood appear on your forehead.).

So, if you are reading anything on these pages and you feel you just have to share it with someone, please give them the URL for this page. That way, you don't have to copy and paste volumes of text into your e-mail/message board, I don't risk losing credit for my work, and whoever you want to read it will get to read it with all the illustrations and neat page design - everybody wins. If you want to just use a quote (a sentence or two) go ahead, I only ask that I receive credit, for example: "Really neat quote," -James R. Temple, Chasing the Daylight.