When you blog, you're out there ...

So, here I sit, minding my own business, checking e-mail before hitting the pile on my desk last Friday morning. Someone on one of the mailing lists I'm on has posted a message, saying that they'd been perusing some of the e-zines that morning, when they happened upon something that looked familiar. Idly, I clicked the link to see what might look familiar, and there, in the middle of an article about dogs having a sense of humor, lifted intact from this very blog, are my own words AND a photograph of Crow. No credit, no mention, no nothing. And no one ever asked my permission.

For what it's worth, I know that when you blog, you have to accept that you're out there, and that anyone who wants can lift your work. The fact that what you put on a web site or a blog is yours - you own the copyright - seems to go unacknowledged, as well as widely unobserved. It does seem to me, however, that if someone wishes to make a living as a writer, they ought to, out of a sense of respect for their own work, respect that ownership and ask permission. To do less is both unethical and unprofessional.

There. I've said my piece. And for what it's worth, the original can be seen in the December 22, 2005 entry in this very blog. The photograph is worth clicking on in this version, but loses much in the resolution provided in the e-zine (which shall go unmentioned and uncited in this entry so you won't patronize them.) And by the way, if you write for an on-line dog-zine, and still have to ask if dogs have a sense of humor, you've already shown that you don't know what you're talking about.