Baby Formula and Copyright Infringement

Salley Shannon

I woke up this morning thinking about copyright infringement, baby formula and Nigerian scam artists of the “you’ve inherited $10 million! Just send $24,000 to process the papers…” variety. As ASJA’s volunteer lobbyist in Washington, I think about copyright infringement and how it damages us writers financially – and emotionally, too – fairly often. Baby formula and scams, not so much.

I rather think my brain made the subliminal connection because a few days ago, a writer buddy said to me “why do they do this? Don’t they know it’s stealing from me? ME? Taking money I’d use to buy groceries and pay the light bill?”

Well, no. They don’t. I’m convinced that most people who use blog posts, magazine articles and even entire books without permission never make the “real people” connection. I have no evidence, but I believe the Nigerian scam artist probably wouldn’t steal from somebody in his village. He’d be horrified and furious if a thief took his grandpa’s life savings. Since he isn’t going to meet the poor sap who wires off $24,000 to a foreign bank, he doesn’t consider the sender is somebody’s beloved, now ga-ga grandparent. The victim isn’t real to him.

Likewise, the Chinese factory owners who put melamine in baby formula, so it would look as though it had more substance, wouldn’t want the neighbors down the block feeding it to their baby.

We know the Internet has made the whole world our village, while human nature and the depth of our imaginations is still the same. ASJA is telling folks in Washington that piracy – much of which is centered in Malaysia and China, but with a goodly chunk going on here in the USA – harms us. We’re pushing for a small claims copyright infringement process, and a revised law for the Internet age.

In the meantime, and even if those changes were to come tomorrow, we still have the unsought-after task of becoming real people to those who steal our work. When your blog or story pops up on someone’s website, do a “whois” lookup to get that person’s contact information: http://www.whois.net. (If you’re a newbie to this, www.domaintools.com/research/dns will give you a one-time free trial, enough to get the hang of it.)

Then, write a note saying “Hey! You probably didn’t think about this, but getting paid for what I write is the way I pay my bills.” Explain how you’re harmed. If friendly doesn’t work, or if you hear back some “everything on the Internet is up for grabs” gobbledygook, respond with a formal Digital Millenium Copyright Act “take down” notice. There’s an explanation and link to a template for it on our site.

Yes, it’s a pain. Yes, we shouldn’t have to do it. But, be real.