Believe it or not, I do have an explanation of why I change my blog’s appearance so often. It seems I have this thing where I easily become annoyed with the color on the walls in my home.

Whereas one week Hawthorne Yellow is my absolute FAVORITE color, the next it feels like I’m living in a tub of “I Cant Believe It’s Not Butter”. I’ve done many different painting techniques on my walls: sponge painting, feather painting, stenciling, faux marbling, antiquing… you name it, I’ve done it. At least three times. All in an attempt to soothe the inflammation in my color-sensitive mind.

I feel it’s a good time to mention that I am not someone who spends a lot of money on clothing, shoes, make-up, jewelry, etc. I tolerate old shoes quite well and I hardly notice that I’m wearing the same winter wardrobe I have had since before anyone knew who Brittney Spears was.

There’s alot that doesn’t bother me. Being banned from the paint section of Home Depot, does.

I realized that I have a paint compulsion when my friend, Stacy, visited a few years back and said “My God, woman! It looks like a clown vomited on your walls.” And she was right. My living room appeared to be suffering from one massive, three-day-old bruise.

So I mustered up some self control and painted the living room a very neutral eggshell color.

Three years ago.

It’s driving me absolutely bonkers but I’ve been forbidden to repaint by the man who actually measured the rainbowed layers bubbling beneath the surface of nuthouse white and discovered that I have managed to shrink our square footage by 1/4 inch. Therefore, I have no choice but to rearrange my blog just to take the edge off.

A quarter inch is nothing compared to the great vastness of the world wide web. My clown’s gotta vomit somewhere.

A recent event in my community has led to some negative media coverage involving our school district.

One twin cities news station stumbled upon a website that I own and maintain for one of our sports teams and, without my permission, used my images in their news story. I was completely shocked as I watched their story unfold on television and saw how they used my photos without so much as a “May we?”. The last thing I wanted was for my community to believe that I had anything to do with the coverage, as if I contacted the station and provided them with information.

I called the news station and was redirected a half dozen times until I was speaking with the executive producer of the newsroom. This woman said “Anything you put on the web is public domain and we can use it however we want.” I argued that this was a privately owned domain and that the images were my intellectual property. I used the word “stolen” and “copyrighted”.

She agreed to remove a photo from their website but made no promises about the video feed and future broadcasts. She encouraged me to leave a voicemail for the vice-president of the station, which I did.

This morning I watched their coverage of the news story and there again were my images. I rechecked their website and discovered that they had put my photo back onto their site.

I called again after doing some research on Internet and copyright laws. This time the woman was not so friendly to me.

“How exactly have you copyrighted this material?” she asked.

“First of all, anything I write, any photographs I take belong to me. The copyright is automatically implied. I went a step further and posted that it is copyrighted by law. This isn’t ‘MySpace’ or ‘Facebook’. This is a domain I own with images I own. I suggest you read the legal disclaimer provided by Creative Commons. In the mean time, I will be delivering a Cease and Desist letter to your station first thing in the morning!”

She got really huffy with me and said “I’m going to contact our station’s attorney and get back to you!”

Meanwhile, I could tell by my stat counter that there was alot of activity on this site from a few different ISP addresses. They were definitely debating the legalities of their actions. A half hour later I received the call:

“We have decided to honor your request and remove the photos.”

“From your website?”

“Yes.”

“From your broadcasts?”

“Yes.”

“From any future broadcasts or stories?”

“Yes.”

“Perfect.”

Bloggers have rights.

Just because we put thoughts and images out their for the world to see doesn’t mean that we give up ownership in doing so. I highly recommend that every blogger reading this takes some steps to protect the content of your site. Here are a few links to get you started:

 Remedies for Infringement

Creative Commons 

What To Do If  Someone Steals Your Work 

Never in a million years did I think I would have to deal with this. I’m hoping you never have to
but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

Oh. And I’ll never watch KSTP news again. Shame on them.

Recording Elly, even with a poor quality video cam, and putting it on YouTube is like handing me the keys to a Godiva store and saying “Have at it. Don’t stop til you get enough.”

It’s her dream come true, only because she’s too young to audition for American Idol.

And not once did any of her brothers interrupt her.

Dooce wears the man clogs.
Read about it here.

What’s next? Rosie O’Donnell announces that she’s actually a heterosexual and pro-war?

This is getting old now. Whatever you are holding out for or wanting is simply not as important as my viewing pleasure so I am asking you nicely to get back to work. Unless, of course, you are being forced to work under inhumane working conditions like drinking water from the community fountain instead of a $5 bottle. In which case, I understand.