I found a website that had an article I’d written years ago. It had been posted without permission or copyright notice. (No link or names; I’m not writing this to point fingers or be bitchy.)
On this site, I found quite a few articles, some attributed, some not, some with permission, some not. There were songs and poems and rituals, some without any author noted. As it happens, I knew who’d written about half of what I saw posted as “anonymous.”
This was common practice, back in the old days. Take everything you can get your hands on, and throw it up there. If you typed it yourself, clearly it’s yours. If you don’t know who wrote it, clearly it’s anonymous. It was exceptionally common among Pagans, but it’s also all over fansites, and probably everywhere else.
The old days are over.
I’m writing this, not to berate one web publisher (although I didn’t like his response, which I’ll detail shortly) but to talk about this as an issue. I’m a writer. It’s who I am, it’s what I do. It’s my bread and butter. It’s my art form. It’s my reputation. Most of what I write is free of charge. You can read this blog for free. The extensive writing I did in Pagan ‘zines in the 80s and early 90s was for free. Most Pagan ‘zines, even today, pay very little if at all. So what I get out of it is that article, attached to my name. That’s the part that’s mine.
I asked the site owner to remove the article. He countered with a request that he be allowed to keep the article, but with permission and copyright notices added. Why did I say no? Mostly because of the series of excuses and explanations he offered. Some of those excuses were about my article, some were about the other materials on the site.
“It’s part of my tradition!” (Meaning, presumably, that his initiator had added the article to her Book of Shadows.)
***Also without my permission. And, I might add, private distribution among a close-knit group is not the same as publication on the Internet.
“But I’ve had it up for nine years!”
***The fact that my copyright has been violated for nine years doesn’t impart any privileges to the violater. It’s not like common law marriage!
“So-and-so found an article of hers on my site, and ultimately, she gave her permission.”
***So, you already knew that you were violating people’s copyrights, and that this was a problem for authors, and yet you still did nothing about the remaining material on your site? That shifts the problem from ignorance to willful negligence.
(About unattributed materials) “I didn’t know they had written that! I didn’t know anyone knew who wrote that!”
***Do the research. Or take it down. Publishers have no business publishing something they haven’t got an attribution on.
“I’m happy to add attribution and copyright for any author who contacts me.”
***Not their responsibility. Yours.
Ultimately, I was simply uncomfortable having my work included on a site where other authors were being disrespected. Instead of taking the article down completely, the title remains with a note “removed by request of the author.” I suppose this is sort of like replacing it with “Deborah Lipp is a bitch” but what the hey, it’s not the first time someone has said that, and won’t be the last.
I’m writing this for every site owner, everywhere. If you love an author’s work, treat it with respect. It’s really not a lot to ask.
A few years back, I started doing a little “what is wicca” seminar online. I collected a bunch of great links and pointed the seminar takers in that direction for some of the information we discussed. When I decided to turn it into a more structured “live” intro course (after my own group began), I realized I ahd two problems with a set of links: 1) not everyone has access to the internet and 2) sites go down and links move.
So I set about contacting each and every author for permission to reprint their work in the context of a “course packet”. I got permission from everyone I could find, and found or wrote similar material for those articles I couldn’t locate an author for. Then I filled in the gaps with books people had to buy (or borrow from my library, for one moon cycle only, on pain of death). It took a little time, but it was definately worth the effort. A couple of people actually responded with “oh, I have an expanded version that isn’t on the web!” Which was waaay cool.
Elements of Ritual is one of the books the “kids” have to get their hands on. I’m currently debating what to do with the Mike Nichols material, as he gave me permission to reprint, but has since published the Sabbats as a book. I feel like we should get the book.
I’ve seen a few of my things out there as well, usually attributed to one or another of my screen names, at the very least. I’m not a writer, but it still irks me when I see something that I wrote (or know the source of) listed without attribution or as anonymous. There was a piece called “Leave it at the Door” circulating a few months ago. It took me 3 minutes with Google to find the original post on a message board and another 3 to write the author and get his permission to stick it in an info packet. WHY don’t people do this? Sigh. And we thought the 80s was the “me” decade. Wathcout…alot of those kids born then got something in the blood!
Bless you for doing it right!
Just recently discovered this blog. I really like it, I’ll be adding it to my blogroll. And I completely agree with you about copyright infringement. It really is important and worth taking the time to do it right. There have been times when I couldn’t find an original source and in those cases I just didn’t use the piece. I’d rather go without than infringe. It really is the the webmasters’ responsibility to get their facts straight and get permission. I don’t blame you for withholding permission in this instance, I would have done the same.