I Wasn't Trying To Rip Anybody Off - Honest

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I've sited podcasts as inspiration for blogs before. Not only did Saturday's episode of On The Media inspire this blog, it ignited 3 days worth of panic driven research and work. One of the show's features told the story of Righthaven, a law firm which is buying copy rights from newspapers, then suing bloggers who use the copy written material without citing its source.

I wasn't worried initially. Many of the people being sued, were posting major portions of, or entire, news articles on their blogs. I DO quote news articles, and other sources, in my blogs. However, I ALWAYS cite specific sources, and provide a link to the full article/site. When using the information, I either use quotation marks around short direct quotes, or I write my own prose to convey what I've learned.

I was feeling pretty secure in the knowledge that I wasn't committing plagiarism, until little bird, or The Holy Ghost, or something whispered the word, "images," into my ear. It suddenly struck me that I use images, from around the internet, in my blogs. Thus, I decided to research the topic of image use in blogs. What I found scared me.

I spent Sunday reading multiple articles on the subject, hoping to find one that said using images on blogs fell under the terms of "fair use." I found the opposite. Google lists multiple stories of bloggers & artists being sued over image use. Remember the HOPE poster from Obama's 2008 campaign? Apparently, the artist, Shepard Fairey, used an AP photo of Obama to design the poster. Even though Fairey worked for the subject of the photo, Obama, AP owned the photo and was able to force Fairey into a legal settlement.

Legal sites such as Aaronhall.com agree the rights to a photo lie with the photographer. I had no idea who the photographers were for all the pictures I'd used. I'd made sure not to steel text, which I saw as the meat of a blog, but I'd treated images as garnish, and tossed them in willy nilly. Plus, the background on my food blog was a collage of pictures I'd collected from all across the internet. Panicked, I did more research to figure out how to legally use images.

1. First of all, I can use any image I take with my camera. With this in mind, I'm going to try hard to carry my camera with me, where ever I go.

2. Next, sites such as The Stock Exchange host licensed pictures on their site. I can use pictures displaying the following license, for free.

"You may use the Image

*In digital format on websites, multimedia presentations, broadcast film and video, cell phones.
*In printed promotional materials, magazines, newspapers, books, brochures, flyers, CD/DVD covers, etc.
*Along with your corporate identity on business cards, letterhead, etc.
*To decorate your home, your office or any public place."

Or, I can buy the right to use "Rights Managed" pictures from these sites. I replaced the background collage on my food blog with a new $4.00 collage.

3. Few users realize it, but people who post pictures on Photbucket sacrifice their copyright to such pictures, unless they mark their photo album as private.

"By displaying or publishing (“posting”) any Content on or through the Photobucket Services, you hereby grant to Photobucket and other users a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content marked “private” will not be distributed outside the Photobucket Services."

I couldn't use a picture someone posted of Captain Kirk, because the poster can't waive Paramount's copyright. However, if someone posts a picture of a grilled cheese sandwich it's fair game.

4. The same widget which allows me to sell items through Amazon, allows me to post images of Amazon's merchandise within my blogs. Thus, I can use in image of a book I'm reviewing as long as I get the image from the widget.

5. Public domains such as CIA Factbook and The Smithsonian Institute are paid for with public money, making their photos free to use.

I wasn't merely upset by the thought of potentially being sued. When it comes to the law, I'm about as conservative as Joe Friday, so the idea I'd been breaking the law bothered me greatly. Therefore, I've deleted my blogs' pictures, and replaced them with legal images when I could. From now on, I'll ONLY use legal images, but when I can't my prose will have to paint my pictures for me.

Will Robot Journalists Eventually Replace Human Writers?

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Recently, the internet has been abuzz with the tale of a robot journalist which supposedly wrote a better story than a sports reporter at GWU's paper. In a nutshell, a reporter at George Washington University wrote up a baseball game, and didn't mention the opposing pitcher's perfect game until the second to last paragraph. Someone remarked that the article under emphasized the significance of the perfect game because it had probably been written by the computers of Narrative Science. The programmers at Narrative Science spouted a collective, "Oh yeah?" entered the facts of the game into their computer, and the computer spit out a superior article, which highlighted the remarkable feat.

Some have suggested that Narrative Science's sports report marked the genesis of the automation of journalism and the writing profession. To determine whether or not flesh and blood writers are destined to go the way of John Henry's axe, we first have to understand what robots are, and are not.

In 1920, Czech writer Karel Čapek penned the term "robot" in his play about a class of artificial people, which had been built to serve humans. Since the play's debut, robots have captured the imagination of millions. Literature, TV, and movies have depicted robots as being happy house servants, military officers, linguistic interpreters, superheroes, and "terminating" soldiers. In fact, through such fiction, the term "robot" has become such a common part of our vocabulary that almost any man, woman, or child can supply at least a partial definition of what a robot is.

I'm not sure if industry was inspired by such stories, or the stories predicted what was to come. In any case, the field of robotics has changed the way we live and work. Most robots are little more than pre-programmed machines, some resembling body parts, which have been built to perform a single specific function. Robot arms weld parts on automobiles along an assembly line. Other robots assemble parts, load and unload trucks, and even vacuum our floors. Remote controlled models are used to explore hazardous environments, detonate or defuse explosives, and perform delicate surgery when the doctor is miles away. Unlike their fictional counterparts though, these are tools without thoughts, feelings, values, or goals of their own.

I know what some of you are thinking right about now. "But, we just saw an intelligent robot win on Jeopardy." No, you didn't, not really. Like its literary counterpart at Narrative Science, Watson is referred to as a robot because it seems to perform a human function. However, when you break down what Watson actually did, you'll find a super fast search engine. Watson's program latched on to key words and phrases within each question, searched its data banks at lightening fast speeds for the most probable response, and sent an electrical impulse to the buzzer faster than Ken Jennings could move his thumb. Watson is unquestionably an impressive data storage and retrieval tool, but it can't combine imagination with its stored set of facts to make a decision beyond its programming. Thus, it can't be considered to be truly intelligent.

Put enough facts into a computer, and the computer can regurgitate those facts in a series of perfectly polished paragraphs. It can even compute the odds of a particular event occurring, and obey its programming by mentioning the most improbable events first.

A computer can definitely relay the facts of a ballgame. It can list scores, RBIs, and errors. Yet, it can't tell you about the tension of the crowd during the eternally long second the umpire took to decide if number 33 was safe or out as he slid into home plate, surrounded by a cloud of dust. Nor, can it describe the scent of hotdogs and beer being gently carried on the cool breeze as the setting sun paints the sky a shade of deep orange just beyond the outfield.

Likewise, a computer can relay a death toll of a battle, tell you who gained or lost ground, and it can probably compute the number of rounds fired. Yet, it can't tell you about the little girl looking, through rubble adorned streets after the battle, for a mother she'll probably never find. It can't convey the wrenching heartbreak of the battle's aftermath.

Just as cooking, good cooking, is more than putting ingredients into a pot and applying heat, good writing is about more than recording a string of raw facts. Both disciplines need to be executed with imagination, passion, and attention to detail in order to be done well. Computers and robots are extraordinary tools, which allow us to perform a variety of tasks. However, they will never possess the zeal, heart, or drive of a writer.

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War

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A few months ago, I was shopping for books when I came across an unabridged edition of The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I'd just made a New Year's resolution to read work from, at least, one classic author every month. When I made the resolution, I had authors such as Dickens, Faulkner, O'Henry, and Hemingway in mind. I thought about it though, and decided the term "classic author" didn't necessarily need to mean "western author," so I bought the book.
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military guide to victory, written in the late-sixth century BC. Comprised of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it is said to be the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its era.

Unlike more contemporary literature, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is written in a very straight forward no frills style. Each chapter begins with a statement of a group of precepts. Then each precept is explained in detail, and the consequences for following or not following each precept are spelled out. At least in my copy, each piece of advice was repeated, in it's entirety, at some later point in the book, perhaps to facilitate comprehension.

The bulk of advice itself, is what most modern people would consider to be common sense today. Treating one's soldiers humanely to foster loyalty, preparing one's self before battle, gathering as much information as possible, and paying attention to one's surroundings are all ideas most kids learn in scouts growing up. Yet, there are a few surprising pieces of advice in this book including, the idea that a general should be willing to disobey his Lord, and a general should hold some facts from his men as a way to manipulate them, which initially seem to be counterintuitive.

It's not the writing style, or the military application of the text, which makes Sun Tzu’s The Art of War a classic. What makes this a classic worth reading, is the fact that it's precepts can be applied to most aspects of life. Granted, we don't want to be burning supply trains, but preparing before a major task, collecting as much information as possible before entering a situation, and treating underlings humanely are all sound rules to live by.

The Way of the Champion: Lessons from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and other Tao Wisdom for Sports & Life, applies Sun Tzu’s principles to the field of sports coaching. Likewise, The Art of War for Executives and Sun Tze The Art of Business apply these rules to the corporate arena. And, while I couldn't find it, I have no doubt there's a book somewhere which applies these ideas to the realm of poker.

Any book which can be applied to so many different disciplines, definitely deserves to be read by any serious reader.

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Side Note:
I've added 2 new Links Of Interest lately, which are worth checking out.
*British Novelist Deborah Lawrenson's Blog - is a blog about books, art, food, and all things inspired by the South of France.
*Blog Spot Geek - is a blog about how to blog successfully.

Writing Amidst Distractions

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The computer is a marvelous tool for a writer. With a standard desktop or laptop, a writer can rely on spell check to proof their typing as they go, paste sentences from one paragraph to another, reorder paragraphs and chapters, and delete a whole passage, which in retrospect is far cheesier than the writer thought it would be before they typed it. None of this, by the way, requires anything more than a basic word processor.

Hook up the internet to a writer’s computer, and that writer has the equivalent of a massive library on their desk/kitchen table. Said writer can access scientific articles and papers on a range of topics from the mating customs of dung beetles to Hubble’s discovery of 3,000 galaxies in just one Ultra Deep Field of space. The writer can access news from around the world, and read about history and events from a variety of perspective from thought provoking to ludicrous. He/she can view maps, satellite photos, and directories of any city in the world, so their character can eat at a sandwich shop which is favorited by locals half a world away. With enough imagination, internet savvy, and time there’s nothing a determined writer can not write about.

Unfortunately, this desktop toolbox for wordsmiths also comes with an extensive set of distractions and diversions. The writer begins the day checking his/her email, and finds they have messages on both the social media sites they belong to in order to promote their work. The writer responds to the messages, updates their status and tweets, then reads and sorts the rest of their email.

Any good writer has to read the work of other writers in order to fuel their inspirational nexus. Thus, he/she subscribes to a series of well written blogs. One of the blogs has an interesting widget in its sidebar, which the writer thinks will spruce up their own blog. So, they find the site offering the widget, sync it with appropriate material for their specific blog, copy the html code, rewrite the code to match their blog's color scheme, and add it to their blog.

The writer finally opens their word processor, or new post page for their blog, when a fellow blogger posts a recipe for low calorie pasta. The next night’s dinner is up in the air, so the writer prints the recipe. Of course, that recipe reminds them of a recipe for lasagna which Alton Brown recently made on TV. The writer decides to print that recipe too, only when they find it they remember they didn’t print it last week because it underutilized cheese, which is the best part of lasagna.

By this time, the writer feels like he/she has done a lot, even though not a lick has been written yet. Thus, the writer takes a 20 minute break to play some online poker. However, the player in position 4 keeps talking smack, so the writer can’t leave until they’ve thoroughly spanked and broken the putz, and 20 minutes has become almost 2 hours. The writer gets away from the cyber-table, and decides, finally, to write. I could go on, factoring in YouTube, Netflix, and a collection of daily, can’t miss, podcasts, but I think the picture’s been adequately painted.

Sometimes, the romantic in me relishes the idea of a good pen, a case of spiral notebooks, and a solitary mountain cabin where I can write uninterrupted. Those who know me, understand why the concept of me living alone, or physically holding a fountain pen for that matter, could never work in reality. Beyond the physical reality though, lies the fact that it probably wouldn’t increase my productivity. Good money says, after a few weeks I’d have names for every squirrel, raccoon, and chickadee in a two mile radius of my cabin, and a kickin’ recipe for beans, but very little work done without my aforementioned research tools at my disposal.

The trick isn’t to shelve technology, as tempting as the notion may sometimes be, but to learn to use it effectively. Good writers need the ability to utilize technology and the discipline to focus past the distractions technology delivers. Such discipline can be drawn from the desire to convey a particular message to readers. Fear of dying before recording everything residing within a writer’s mind, is what inevitably keeps many of us on task and writing.