Wow...who knew that a silly little personal blog that gets what, like 5 readers, could cause such a ruckus?!?
So my profile avatar image was just a random picture I came across on photobucket. I thought it was clever and fitting so I snagged it and uploaded it. Never in my wildest imaginings did I consider the drama it would cause due to one poor, pathetic author.
I had no idea what the image was or where it came from, but apparently it is the cover for some obscure book that nobody has ever even heard of. Or some obscure book I certainly had never heard of at any rate.
Last night my cousin CaCA got home from a trip to VA for the holidays and stopped by my place to catch up for a bit before heading down to our grandmother's house for the night. Due to a slight mishap while driving in the snow, she got to my place around 11:30 and stayed until 1:30 or so. As a single mom who works full time and goes to school full time I'm rarely up that late so it was a bit of a one-off.
Anyway...at 12:30 a.m. I get an email to my Blackberry that someone had posted a new comment for approval on my blog.
"I've tried to contact you otherwise, but don't see your email:
You are currently violating copyright laws by using my book cover as your avatar/logo.
In the "About Me" section, that's the cover to my book "Single Mom Seeking."
It's protected and copyrighted by Seal Press and you need permission from them to use it on the web.
I'm urging you to delete it/replace it ASAP.
Thank you so much!! Here's to single moms... let's just do this without violating any laws or trying to impersonate.
Thanks,
Rachel "
My cousin and I had a pretty good laugh about the ridiculousness of this message and since I don't currently have internet access at home (thanks to my laptop deciding to take a crap on me) I planned to just remove the image when I got to work at 2:00 the next afternoon (today). However, apparently 14 hours was faaaaaaaar to long for Miss Rachel to wait because I got the following comment a mere 11 hours later at 11:30 this morning...
"I see that you have not yet taken my book cover off your site -- claiming it as your own.
I'm sorry to be such a stickler about this, but you're violating some very strict copyrighting laws. What you're doing is illegal.
I have now reported your infringement to Blogger.com.
If my book cover is not removed promptly, I will have your blog shut down. "
OOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this crazy lady JOKING?!? Heaven forgive me for not logging into blogger in the middle of the freaking night to make sure I don't have urgent comments in need of my immediate attention!
Anyway...the image has now been removed and sadly this is one book that I probably would have gone out and purchased ASAP if the insane author had simply gone about things in a mature and reasonable manner, but I absolutely will not be buying it now. SHEEEEEEEEEEESH!!
I certainly was not trying to "impersonate" someone I don't know from Adam and I certainly was not trying to "claim as my own" some bomb of a book that I had never even heard of!
My apologies, Rachel, for the obvious distress my "illegal" actions have caused you.
Hope you all got as good of a laugh out of all this ridiculous and pointless drama as CaCA and I have! Now who wants to make me a new single mommy image for my avatar???
Until next time, much love!
~T
6 comments:
Tara, that's hillarious!! I can't believe she was so anal about it. wouldn't if have been customary to give you like 24-48 hours to comply? Good Grief!! Hey! I think I'm going to copyright everything I've ever said and then report people for saying them....yeah....LOL. Love ya!
Tara, that's hillarious!! I can't believe she was so anal about it. wouldn't if have been customary to give you like 24-48 hours to comply? Good Grief!! Hey! I think I'm going to copyright everything I've ever said and then report people for saying them....yeah....LOL. Love ya!
That was really harsh, what she wrote to you. You'd think she'd like some publicity for her book. Blogger solidarity, I'll be boycotting it as well.
HOLY CRAP! You'd think that lady would be a little more diplomatic about it and at least ask NICELY and waited patiently. I certainly don't want to be taking any kind of advice from THAT sort of woman, single mom or not. You'd think she would try to hear your side of the story before going all blog-stalker on you and not even giving you a chance to log in and change it before reporting you to Blogger. It wasn't even your fault you didn't know that picture was from the cover of a book and I certainly had no idea it was a book somewhere out there and I've worked at a library for four years! I've seen plenty of books, but certainly never that one. Maybe Miss Rachel should be mad at the person who changed her book cover picture and yanked her rude little name off it in the first place since you innocently and unknowingly stumbled upon it AFTER someone else did the copyright infringing. *rolls eyes* She seems like an obsessed freak to me. The author's REAL personality emerges!
Damn, I hope she doesn't make ALL us Rachel's look like mean tempered shrews!
I'm a 'single mom seeking' and my name is Rachel....am I violating any laws? Should I change my name???
Wow.. what a crazy lady.
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