Copylifting

At the very bottom of every page on this site you'll see a copyright notice.
What this means is that all content on this site is copyright care of myself, unless otherwise stated - and that also means you cannot simply copy content (text or images) and paste it/use it wherever you like. Altering copied content doesn't remove the copyright either.

The most common breach of copyright seems to be via the various online auction sites, where I've seen entire reviews copied and used as a means of enticing bidders. Such auctions sometimes turn out to be scams.
All such sites have a stated policy of copyright protection that prohibits sellers from using copyrighted material without express permission. It is your responsibility to make yourself aware of these rules, and to abide by them.

Other breaches of copyright have appeared on online forums and 'wikis', and even commercial sites.
I suppose I should be flattered, but more often than not entire reviews, articles and images are ripped from my site and pasted wholesale onto various sites without so much as a mention as to the origin, let alone any attempt being made to ask permission. This is known as copylifting.

There are various methods I can (and will) use to protect my intellectual rights.
In the case of forums and wikis I can contact the site administrators and ask them to remove the content. This may result in your being given a warning about the use of copyright material - or they might just revoke your membership.
For commercial and personal sites I can contact the site owner and request the content be removed.
In all cases mentioned I rely on the co-operation of the site owners. Some are co-operative, some aren't - and where they aren't I can contact the host provider. Host providers are far more accountable, and are liable to suspend the entire site until the content in question has been removed.

In the case of auctions I can contact the seller direct and ask that my material be removed - or I can simply contact the auction site admin and do it 'officially'. Either way, the content will be removed - at best it will mean you'll have to edit your auction, at worst it means your auction will be cancelled (you will lose your fees)...and it may result in your being thrown off the site.

In some instances copied material can 'leech' bandwidth from my site. This typically happens when an image is copied along with its referring URL. What that means is that although the image appears on the site it's copied to, it's actually my host provider that's sending it. The more bandwidth my sites uses, the more I have to pay - so I'm particularly keen to deal with such breaches of copyright. I can use all the options mentioned above...or I can simply change the content at this end, which means that whatever I write or display will be repeated at the copyist's site. You can be sure that it won't be very pleasant (but hey, I'm paying for it, so what the hell - might as well have a laugh!).

All in all, dealing with copyright theft (yes, it's theft) is an inconvenience all round and I have far better things to be doing than to keep chasing people who haven't read the appropriate warnings that are clearly visible both here and on the sites they use. As such it's more likely that I will go straight for the option most likely to succeed in the shortest possible time - and log a copyright infringement notice with the host provider.

On the brighter side, you are entitled to 'fair use' of the text on this site (note, not the images). In practice this means you can quote a 'reasonable amount' of unedited text provided you also state who wrote it originally and where you got it from (typically a referring url suffices). As to how much is reasonable, a paragraph or two is about right. Use your common sense - in questionable cases the host provider is likely to err on the side of caution (and thus in my favour).
If in doubt, drop me a line - it's that easy.

If you wish to use a review in your auction, the accepted method is to simply provide a link from your auction page to the relevant page on this site.
This is easy to do: First copy the line below and paste it into your auction description...

<a href="insert copied url here">type your description here</a>

Now find the relevant review page you wish to use and copy the url from your browser address panel. Just click on the panel and it should highlight - right click and select copy.
Now select the text between the quotes in the sample link you pasted into your auction page (ensure you don't select the quotations marks), delete it and paste in the copied url.
Delete the text 'type your description here' and type in something like "A review of this horn" - without the quotes.
If prospective bidders wish to read more information about your horn they can simply click through to the review page - and everyone's happy.
I've seen some great auctions where the seller has properly used quotes and credits from many sources, and I'm pleased if a few of my comments help someone get a decent price for a good horn.

If you think it's worth taking a chance, well, that's up to you. This site has a very large readership around the world, and many of them are active on the various auction sites and forums. Word tends to get back to me when someone's using my content, and the first and last you'd know of it would be an email from your auction/site hosts.

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