Protecting your creative work on the internet

I felt inspired to write another one of these posts since I keep coming across blogs where people will write "copyrighted by so and so." Uhh, cool. Do you know who enforces copyrights? YOU DO. There's no copyright police around making sure people are not going to steal your copyrighted material. (And yes, you can get a copyright registration with the US Copyright Office, but they don't enforce. Additionally, under common law, anything you create is automatically copyrighted so there a ton of people running around with copyrighted material.)

To enforce your copyright, you have to find out the identity of the infringer. You have to sue them. You have to pony up the money for litigation and in the end, you might just get an injunction (which means they have to stop using your stuff) and no money damages. P.S. If you are a blogger, you probably won't get money damages unless you are making money off of your site. The litigation costs are going to surpass whatever money you recover from damages to your site. Trust. Also, the internet is worldwide. If the infringer lives in another country, that may mean trying to find a forum (court) that has power to compel your infringer to stop and that is willing to hear your dispute.

That little mark that you put on your pictures means nothing if you don't have the means to enforce. It's smarter to use technological protection measures. You can code your pictures so that people can't right click and save or hotlink to your pictures. You can make it so that people can't highlight your text and copy and paste on to their sites. These mechanisms are much more effective and cost-effective in protecting your intellectual property. (I don't know how to do this yet- techno n00b, but if you care that much about your stuff, you should learn.)

Happy blogging.

vacation recap

I've been a techno-klutz for the past week. First, I accidentally knocked Kev's laptop from the hotel chair when I bumped into it with my hip. I thought it would be fine, since I've dropped my laptop more than once and it managed to survive. Wrong. I cracked the screen. The upside to that is he took apart his laptop and frankensteined his keyboard onto my laptop. (My keyboard was missing the 1 key.) So yay for that. We ordered another screen when we got home.

Then, on our way home from the trip, I started clearing out my camera so I can take new pictures on our last day and deleted all our trip pictures. I downloaded a recovery program, but since I took some new pictures, it wrote over the only pictures that I wanted. I consider it Murphy's Law in action. We sought out a giant Xmas tree and a giant heart and those picture were written over. Meanwhile, all the Usher concert pictures remained intact. Well, here's half of what would have been a cute couples picture.

Cool, huh?

Then when I was using a spray adhesive to attach tags to my Xmas gifts, I sprayed too much and covered his phone with adhesive...on the touch screen. O.o But I'm happy to report I've been damage free for 3 days now, and my bf has not dumped me. Yay.

Hrm, what else? The vacation was unremarkable. We went to Union Square, Ferry Building, Japantown, Berkeley and Fisherman's Wharf. We also took a tour of a chocolate factory (Tcho) which was actually started by the guy who started Wired magazine. The next day, I saw his daughter (the tour guide) and him eating outside of the Ferry Building. What a coincidence.

On the chocolate tour, Kevin was an eager beaver, raising his hand to answer and ask questions left and right. I made a comment about it after we left and he said, "I thought they were going to give us chocolate for participating." They didn't. Lame.

pre-vacation thoughts

Kevin wants to leave at 4 a.m. I woke up at noon today. Looks like I'm just going to stay up. We're going to SF, in case you're wondering.

I love winter break. Law school ruins our spring break by forcing us to come back and finish up the semester, so it's not really a break. You're still worrying about the semester. Summer isn't a break either. We worry about finding jobs and working. But winter, now there's a time to lie around, text your friends who are home for the holidays, and watch Netflix for hours on end.

Or go to Target.

Owls for my living room.

top from CAbi

skirt from Target

I love lace, but I'm not a fan of the wide black band on top. Oh well, it was $11.

Quilted pattern on the brain. These look less bright in person. I may have to take a daytime pic.

thoughts from the library

Florence Henderson aka Carol Brady is on the cover of "Senior Living." She is still alive. And yes that magazine exists.

I've always said I want to be a writer, even if it's just those frothy Harlequin-lites for teens, but I would never ever want to be associated with a book titled, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Yes, that also exists.

fashion craving: chain bags

I might as well not post my fashion cravings, because I never get them. I wanted some chain necklaces a year ago and didn't jump on the trend. Now they are gone, GONE. Well, I'm told by ladymags that these bags are "classic," so hopefully I can get on board before they depart with the incoming season of bags.

Cross-body, chain detailing, structured with a cute little lock. These are my favorite looks at the moment. Scroll over for brand detail.

At home exercises

I am one of those people who work out regularly. I have nothing to show for it really, but I like the feeling of exercising. So I've been cooped inside my apartment all day, freaked out about finals (yet I still find ways to waste time online). I've been craving some exercise and decided to try out these moves from Women's Health. They actually got my heart beating faster. Women's Health recommends 12-16 reps per move for all 4 moves. 2-3 circuits of all 4 moves. I've scanned them. (Click the thumbnails.) So if you don't have time to go to the gym, I recommend doing a short circuit at home.

who needs make up when there's photoshop

I downloaded some brushes from Obsidian Dawn and played around on an old make up picture. I gave myself top and bottom lashes and filled out a strand of hair. I had to make layers and distort the stamps to adjust it to my image, but it took a lot less time than actually putting on make up and doing my hair. When are we going to go upload our consciousness a la "The Matrix?" I'm ready to be a make up guru in that realm. =P

over the Fakesgiving table

Went to my 2nd Thanksgiving dinner last night where the following conversation happened.

Tim: Pigs...are they angry pigs?

Me: No, Tim, it's the birds that are angry, not the pigs. The pigs are just scared.

Ricky: They're not scared. They're smiling.

Christine: I don't get it. Are you guys talking about Farmville?

Me: Is it 2008?

Kardashian obsession

This picture will have to do. I was hoping to get a personal pic with my own camera! Stupid Borders screwed me over.

Let me start from the beginning. I secretly love "Keeping up with the Kardashians" ever since I caught Season 3 on Netflix. Khloe is my favorite. She's hilarious. The show won me over when in the car heading to county jail for Khloe's sentence, Kris asked, "Hey Khloe, if for some reason we have a bunch of time, do you want to go get breakfast?" Khloe just gave her this look like, "No, Mom. I have to go to jail!" I cracked up, because I can totally see my mom doing something like that.

I digress. Kim, Kourtney and Khloe were to appear at my local Borders today at 7. I got there at 4, figured I would study for awhile until they came. The place was nuts. There was a huge book signing line. People milled about. I found the table where they were to do the signing and plopped down near a bookcase. There were a row of seats near the table, which were of course already all taken.

I sat for maybe 10 minutes when the Borders people came and shooed us all away to make room for the paparazzi. Uhh, can't they find her outside of a Starbucks or any time? They have tipsters! We don't. What the hell. THEN they made everyone get off the chairs and said they were just moving them away from the table. Everyone reluctantly got up. They moved them about 4 or 5 ft away from the table, then put bookcases between the chair and signing table. RUDE.

They made it so we can't even get a glimpse of the table if we were not in the dang book signing line. People were still milling around and I heard someone say we were all eventually going to have to get in some kind of line. Dumb.

At this point, I decided to peace the heck out. I have been within a foot of Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore just walking around LA! No way I was going to put up with all this Borders BS. I'll probably have better luck running into them shopping.