Writing Wednesday: No Copyright for You!

Last week’s Writing Wednesday post (oops…technically it was two weeks ago, due to the Thanksgiving holiday) focused on what kind of works receive copyright protection. As promised, this week we’re looking at works that are not covered by copyright. Don’t panic. Remember, as a general rule novels and artistic or creative works receive protection under copyright law. However, copyright protection does not exist for: 1.   Works protected by other areas of intellectual property law, for example “words, slogans and phrases”  (protected by Trademark law), “ideas, procedures, processes, systems and methods” (protected by patent law), and Trade Secrets (protected by…you guessed

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A New Appreciation For Bill & Ted

The writers of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure made good use of humor. Although the film lacked critical acclaim, it resonated with children of the ’80s, largely due to effective use of inside jokes. Until I began writing mystery novels, I didn’t appreciate just how effective one particular joke really was. A brief summary to bring everyone up to speed: Bill S. Preston, Esq. and “Ted” Theodore Logan are high school students hard pressed to scrape up a decent grade between them. If Bill and Ted fail their history class, Ted’s father will send him to military school, thereby breaking

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Spotted in a Starbucks in Sacramento, CA

A flyer advertising a Christmas Holiday craft fair at a local high school. The lead line (in 30 point font) read “HUGE CRAFT FAIR” followed by the school’s address and the date and times of the sale. The next four lines (in 18 point font) described the types of booths and crafts, the food, and other craft fair attractions. After that, the poster featured a large open space with Christmas-craft-ish illustrations (because nothing puts me in the holiday mood like a pre-Thanksgiving poster covered with mangled gingerbread figures and psychotic snowmen wielding what I hope are brooms and not the

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Giving Thanks for Life

A year ago next month, I brought home a box of water and rocks and set it up in my office. It looked like this: The rocks represented a life-long dream – and also a challenge. Could I learn enough chemistry to keep the salinity stable? Could I make this box of rocks support life? For Christmas, I received worms (you know your family loves you when…): One year later, I have them still…. (The pink cones in the lower center are Ed the Coco Worm doing his coral impression.) In the spring I acquired corals. Among them, nuclear green

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When Life Gives You Octopodes, Make Octopi.

Few things bring people together like cookies and octopodes. Last night the guys and I settled around the TV to watch the most recent episode of The Next Iron Chef – Super Chefs – “in which the remaining contestants visit an improv club and must try not to gag on camera when asked to cook octopus with tortillas and marshmallows. (Seriously…I feel their pain.) My love for the Iron Chef franchise goes back to the original Japanese series (which I still consider the all-time best show on television), and although I’m not as fond of Iron Chef America, I do

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Writing Wednesday: Copyrightable Subject Matter

Today’s post continues the new Writing Wednesday dedicated to all aspects of publishing law and “deciphering legalese.” Much of the post can also be found on Twitter (albeit in smaller bites) under the #PubLaw hashtag. So…what types of creative works are subject to copyright protection? According to the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC 102) “(a) Copyright protection [exists] … in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device…” Legalese indeed. TL;DR:

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Because I Love to Write

November 15 is official “Love to Write Day.” In honor of the occasion, permit me to offer the “Top Ten Reasons Writing is Awesome” 1. You can have imaginary friends without people thinking you’re crazy. (Well, not for that reason, anyway.) 2. The ability to justify countless book purchases as “research.” 3. Corollary to #2: The ability to read just about anything without causing alarm. (No, really, the Field Guide to Easily Available Poisons is only for research purposes. Would you like some more herbal tea? I made it myself…) 4. Listening to other people’s conversations isn’t eavesdropping…it’s character study.

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For Those Seeking Inspiration…and Kittens.

We’ll file this one under “strange, but awesomely compelling”: Written? Kitten! A website which promises (and delivers) a new photograph of a kitten every time you type another 100 words into the text box. I found this via Twitter’s @LiteratiCat (aka Literary Agent Jennifer Laughran) who posted it as a cure to the NaNoWriMo* word count blues. It’s equally functional if you’re writing an essay, a blog post, or anything else that involves word counts in excess of 100. If you just want to see the kittens, cutting and pasting works too. *For the non-writers among us: NaNoWriMo stands for

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Happy Birthday to the United States Marines

November 10 is the official birthday of the United States Marine Corps. In 1921 General John Lejeune, the 13th Commandant of the Marines, issued Marine Corps Order No. 47, Series 1921. The order summarized the history, mission, and tradition of the Marines, and directed that the order itself be read to all Marines on November 10 of each year to honor the founding of the Marine Corps and remind the United States Marines of their mission and the history of the proud Corps with which they serve. Men and women do not “join” the Marines. Those who complete the training

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Writing Wednesday

Some of you know I’m fairly active on Twitter, and also that I often speak and teach on publishing law and contract issues. Yesterday it occurred to me that these two separate efforts might also work well together. (Blame the Reese’s cups. It was their idea.) So…I started a hashtag. #PubLaw wasn’t being used for anything else, so now it’s the place where I tweet about publishing law and publishing contracts. I’ll use the space to answer questions, and also to link my Writing Wednesday/publishing law posts. (Feel free to use the comments section for questions also, as usual.) Today’s

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