![]() * If it's a time-based service of some kind, for how long are you obligated? Often there are traps buried in the text of a contract. Before you spend your money on any services, I suggest you do the following:ġ. By far the most frequent questions and complaints we receive involve small publishers, various flavors of vanity presses, self-publishing services, and marketing or other so-called services aimed at small press and self-published authors."Īs they say, one door closes, another door opens-even for scammers. "Now, in 2012, Writer Beware only rarely hears about brand-new agent scams even inquiries about well-intentioned amateur agents-which once made up a large percentage of our correspondence-have dwindled to a trickle. Victoria Strauss, who runs the valuable Writer Beware blog, has this assessment of what's happening in the world of writing scams: To be on the safe side, I'm quoting Kafka, who isn't that far from Peanuts and The Smiths. Instead, people who may have been on the fence about music piracy or those already into it can point to this as another example of how the big corporations don’t care about anything but squeezing every last penny out of their products.įor writers, the message is beware of music publishers and their lawyers. How was this hurting them? With all that coverage it’s more likely that it reminded some people that they liked the Smiths. It’s not quite on the order of the time Disney lawyers went after a pre-school that had painted some Disney characters on their wall, but from a public relations standpoint it’s a disaster. Although she is claiming fair use, she also has written on the blog, “I know it’s over.” However, Universal Music Publishing Group (which owns the rights to the music and lyrics) has served LoPrete with notices alleging copyright infringement. It’s not a profit-making venture, it came about because LoPrete loves both the music of the Smiths and Peanuts. Of course the fact that it was mentioned in Rolling Stone, Gawker, Time magazine, Huffington Post, Slate, and others didn’t hurt. The blog took off very quickly, now boasting more than 24,000 followers. One example: Charlie Brown in bed in the dark bedroom, saying “Last night I dreamt that somebody loves me.” The strips aren’t that different from what Charles Schultz wrote Charlie Brown (or the late Charles Schulz, who drew the strip) and Morrissey seem to be soul mates. ![]() Quoting even one line of lyrics in a novel has led some of them to demand what I think are outrageous payments, with the threat of a lawsuit if you don’t pay.Īnother example is a tumblr blog called “This Charming Charlie,” where the author, graphic designer Lauren LoPrete, matches images from the Peanuts comic strip with lyrics from songs by the Smiths. Song publishing companies are especially touchy and quick to sue. If you quote 100 words of a novel that’s 75,000 words long, you’d probably be fine. For instance, if you quote 100 words of an article that’s only 150 words long, that would be an abuse of fair use. There are no hard and fast rules about how much of the original you can quote or use, it’s down to common sense (and sometimes the courts). However, you are limited in how much of the original work you can use, and also by whether or not your use of the excerpt might take away from the creator’s ability to benefit financially from his or her work. In copyright law,“Fair use” means that you can use excerpts of articles, books, and other creative works in the course of reviewing them, or in educational materials, or in a transformative way, meaning you change the nature of the final product.
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