Copyright Infringement

I've taken some old posts offline.  It may be temporary or it might not be.  [UPDATE, June 25, 2012:  I've put the posts back online.]

Initially, I played Marvel: Avengers Alliance a lot, but cooled off quickly due to the lack of new content and the simplicity of the game.  In that initial period, I also had many ideas for blog content, many of which haven't come to fruition.  I've lost interest in creating new, original work for this blog (as well as another blog) for a couple of reasons.  I can barely justify taking the time to make new, but bland, unoriginal posts.

I make virtually no money from the advertising on this blog, especially in light of the amount of work I've put in.  The most important reason for this is probably the incredibly low CTR (click-through rate) on ads among Facebook gamers.  It's nice, however, to see an increasing number of readers, likes, and page views.

Copying Is Not "Sharing"

What really annoys me, though, is copyright infringement.  Many people don't seem to understand what that means.  How would you like to spend many hours working on something--most of it original--only to see other people copy you?  Not only that, but it's the worst form of copying.  I don't just mean taking an idea and creating a similar piece of work.  Some people copy HTML code (not from this blog that I've noticed) and use it on their own websites, or take screenshots of original work and spread it around as if it were their own work.

Most people don't even bother to credit or link to what they are copying.  The ethical thing to do is to give an excerpt (not the whole work if it is long, with some exceptions), credit the source, and provide a link.  In some cases, it would also be proper to ask permission from the author first.

Intellectual property can be hard to understand.  It is an abstract, Western concept.  It is one of the pillars of modern Western society.  There are grey areas such as the notion of "fair use", such as when I use images from Avengers Alliance.

Think about this.  Why would anyone continue to do anything original without getting paid if others constantly profit from it without doing any work of their own?  Some people might still do it out of interest, passion, naivety, ignorance, or some selfish motive.  But most people would simply stop creating original work.

References

Wikipedia - Intellectual Property

Wikipedia - Copyright Infringement

Wikipedia - Digital Millennium Copyright Act

United States Copyright Office

Facebook - Copyright Policy

Facebook - About Copyrights

Facebook - Reporting Copyright Infringements

Facebook - online form for reporting infringement of copyright, trademarks, and other

Blogger - online form for reporting copyright infringement