I just discovered my three most recent Drawing Life posts reproduced whole hog, without attribution or links, on a stupid blog site with a misspelled name. I suppose this is the risk we all take making content available on the internet, but let me take this opportunity to reassert and reinforce the copyright notice that appears at the top of the sidebar. The content here is not in the public domain. I, Fred Hatt, own it and I claim full copyright protection. That means all rights reserved. That means if you reproduce any of it without my express permission you are in violation of U.S. and international laws.
Digital technology makes it so easy to reproduce content that people do it without a thought. The world is changing for all of us who write or make images or music or movies, and we’re trying to adapt. But our content is all we do, and we depend on our ownership of it. If you like art or music or writing, you must respect those who create it. If you need content and can’t produce your own, there’s plenty of public domain and Creative Commons material available. The content on this blog is not free for the taking, and I will protect my ownership of it by any means necessary.
Copyright Fred Hatt. All rights reserved. Got it? I’ll be interested to see if they hijack this post too.
Update: I just checked the violating site and all of the above is already there, as soon as I posted it – automated theft. There will be no further posts here until I figure out how to stop it. If anybody can help, please let me know.
Another update: I checked again ten minutes later and all my content has been removed from their site. I guess they got my emails. I’d still like to find out how to prevent automated content theft, so please contact me if you have special knowledge.
