First, for private use, basically you can do anything you want with it. How is anyone suppose to know? It's when you publish something and make it available to the world the rules kick in.
As you read my blog you may want to comment on it or quote it in another venue. It could be because you like or agree with it and want to share the knowledge, but I am not fooling myself; I am sure something I say will piss you off and you will probably want to run me through the ringer. Go ahead. Isn’t free speech great! There are a few rules, however, from this thing called copyright law.
- I own it: What I write is mine, I own it. Mine, mine, mine. I do not have to remind you with a copyright notice I own it; the law these days says copyright begins when I create it, even without putting a notice on it.
- You can quote it: Feel free to quote the blog posts. I encourage it. You can quote it in order to comment on it, criticize it, parody it, and use it in research or teaching. In these cases you do not need my permission to use the material (I know another blog, written by a professional writer, who thinks you need permission from him or you cannot quote anything for any reason. Fair use says otherwise). This does not mean you can just copy the whole thing and put it on your website or publish it in a book or other form. That is called piracy, and not the good ninja fighting piracy, its the illegal kind. Even worse is to claim what I wrote as your own. That is plagiarism, a word that means “you suck ass.”
- Tell where it came from: When you do make fair use of my writing, please make sure to attribute it to Eric Phillips and give a link to where it came from.
Want to know more about fair use? Wikipedia has a good article on it, and well as Stanford University.
What can I do with what you write on my blog?
I do not claim to own what you say because you put it on my comments section or in my (someday to be) forums. It is your expression and therefore your copyright. If I want to do anything with it I would have to go by fair use as well. Just make sure it is yours, and anything not yours follows the Fair Use rules.
Sometimes I delete things. I might need to make space on the server; my account it cheap and somewhat limited in storage. It may be because you wrote something unfriendly or gross, or promote things that should not be here: illicit deals, planning terrorist missions (both foreign terrorism or the home grown kind used by wacko militia, wingnuts and hate groups), teaching how to do illegal things, gross sexual stuff, posting illegal torrents or other ways to find pirated material, or a number of other reasons that I have not thought of, but I will aspire to use common sense and be fair. If you really want to keep what you want, make sure you copy it and archive it yourself.
What about pants?
Our rule is "no shoes, no shirt, no service." Consider pants optional.
If you have a question.
Ask it in the comments of this page. If it is something I forgot but is important I will move it to this FAQ. Better yet, go talk to an attorney. Unless you do something egregious I will probably not even bother with it, but know the rules because some other people are not so nice, even if it creates "Rifts" within their fanbase. Unfortunately.
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