Copyright

By Bonnie Harris

I'm sure many of you have seen the blog post I'll soon talk about floating around. My experience with copyright has always been with music. I remember helping my dad go through file cabinets full of music at his school, pulling out the photo copies of music and destroying them because of copyright. It took forever because the teacher before him hadn't followed the copyright laws. In that particular instance, the law violated was that teachers are allowed to make "practice copies" of the music they are working on, as long as the copies are not kept. That's just a small aspect of the music copyright laws.

Most movies have a copyright laws listed somewhere in the opening credits. You know, use of this video in any other manner or without the written consent of so-and-so is prohibited. Popular music that is performed has a copyright too. Just about everything out there that has to do with the arts is attached to a copyright law for the protection of those individuals who work so hard to produce their art.

Some of us, albeit unknowingly, violate copyright laws, sometimes on a daily basis. This article opened my eyes and reminded me to be careful that I don't violate someone's copyright by copying and pasting a picture or article or something of that nature on my blog. As published, so to be published, and prepublished authors, we should be aware of and respect other artists copyright. I know we will expect others to do the same for us when it's our time.

So take the time to read this article. It's a very telling post of this gals personal experience with copyright. And just be careful. In the meantime, Happy Writing.

Roni Loren: Bloggers Beware (Just a note, she is a national bestselling romance author so there are those kinds of covers on her blog.)