Plans, An Annoyance, And Hope [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

Pleasing

I'm not feeling well enough to count on getting to Balticon today, so instead of pushing myself to try to do so anyhow, I'll be resting today (and tackling some interruptible, low-energy tasks) so as to make it easier to get myself to the convention tomorrow and Sunday. Thanks to very kind assistance from a friend, I'll even be there all legitimate-like. Art show. Programming. Yaay! Now to decide which/how many instruments to lug around.

Annoying/Depressing

I need to find a webmaster's email address and compose a nastygram. I found another illegitimate copy (i.e. they didn't ask first) of one of my stories on a web site ... with my name removed, as if violating my copyright (and removing my copyright notice) weren't bad enough. To add insult to injury, the formatting is %^&@ing braindead. (It looks like they grabbed it from a Usenet archive instead of from my own web site or one of the few places that has permission to republish it, and auto-converted each line of the text file into a separate HTML paragraph. This is wrong on so many levels, starting with the fact that it obscures my actual paragraph breaks somewhat.) I should probably send them a bill -- what's a typical license fee for web use of a story by a non-"name" author?

The other stories I peeked at on the same site are also missing bylines, so I'm guessing that most of the rest of them are stolen as well.

Hopeful

In what ought to be a positive step with regard to my mental health, and after more searching than I thought it'd take, I've finally got the times & locations of a couple of Al-Anon meetings in Baltimore. (AA meetings are easy to find; Al-Anon, not so much.) I've also had some mental inertia to overcome, of the "me, go to a support group?" variety. Here's hoping it helps.

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With regard to finding the webmaster's email, is the offending site a separate domain on its own? You might be able to get the info through a whois call (several easy-to-use interfaces all over the Net).

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I should probably send them a bill -- what's a typical license fee for web use of a story by a non-"name" author?

To hell with that; send them an itemised bill for a half-cent a word ("little" magazine publishing rates for first online publication rights), plus a couple-four hours of your time at whatever you charge as a P/A, under "web administration and billing services" or something. I'm sure you can come up with something appropriate; you're a creative guy. I'd figure out the amount of time you should charge them as the actual amount of time it took you to track them down, rounded up to the nearest hour, or your nearest billable-hours increment in full hours (dunno if you charge hourly or in blocks of time) thereto. That is to say, if it takes you 2.5h to straighten the mess out, charge 'em for three hours. If you only bill in four-hour increments, charge 'em for four. *evilgrin*

Goodness knows you could use the money, assuming they paid up, of course.

Hell, bill them ten cents a word. If they wanted to negotiate a lower rate, they should have contacted you ahead of time.

Either that, or see what the library or your friends can tell you about typical damages for copyright infringement.

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I guess this is obvious but I am not the support group type either. Like many of your friends (but not you) the religious element doesn't work for me. And it is indeed much harder to find Al-Anon meetings than AA meetings although that is somewhat reasonable. GIven all that, I think going to Al-Anon is very, very valuable. The people are amazingly supportive and if you talk with any coordinator about your finances, you should be able to get the books without charge (if not, let me know.) Also, it it fairly likely that you can get rides and I think it might be helpful......with others things.

We can talk more about this if you feel up to emailing or calling. Either one is fine. Support is always here if only you'd avail.....

{{Hugs}}

When you write your nastygram to the webmaster, make sure to cc: the TOS department at the hosting provider. Most web-hosting / bandwidth agreements have a thing or two to say about copyright...

I'm sure you have one or two lawyer friends who will let you CC them, too.

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