Every time Richard Prince pushes the fair use envelope using someone else’s work, I struggle with what it means for other artists. Does copyright protection have any meaning when Richard Prince takes what he pleases and keeps the change? How…
How to Use Song Lyrics in Your Story
mu’sic (mŭ’zĭk), n., any art over which the Muses presided, esp. music, lyric poetry set and sung to music, fr. mousikos belonging to the Muses or fine arts. Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition, 1954. For many writers music is…
Copyright and Estate Planning for Creative Professionals
The copyright in a creative work out lives the creator, generally by 70 years — which means that the work can continue to generate income long after the artist is gone. The business idea behind copyright is that a single…
How BitTorrent Technology is Used to Pirate Copyrighted Material — A Primer for Writers
I wrote a post for Molly Greene explaining how self-published writers could have unauthorized download links to their ebooks removed from what appeared to be a pirate site, General eBooks — Has Your eBook Been Pirated? What To Do: Step…
Fighting eBook Pirate Sites on the Internet
There is a site called General eBooks. A large number of pirated ebooks can be found there. Recently, Molly Greene, a well known blogger and author, asked me to help her get the links to illegal downloads of her books…