How I Made an Ass of Myself and Other Fun Foibles.

Recently I wrote a post about the great science fiction writer Harlan Ellison. In it, I described him in glowing terms as essentially mercurial and a strong advocate for writers as artists and people that deserve to get paid for their work. The thing that prompted this was an ad for Ellison's short story collection "Under Glass," which he wrote in bookstore windows where the public could see him working. The whole idea was to serve as a living example of the fact that writing is work.

I knew about this before the ad came out; Ellison did this many years ago, after all. But the re-release prompted in me a need to point out the obvious: If you call yourself a writer and you don't appreciate the man's vast talent and willingness to defend not just the written word by the originators of those words, you probably aren't much of a writer. In fact, I'll go even further and say you probably just want to sell books to movie production companies.

The original post, which can be read by clicking here, was quite popular and viewed many times, helped in no small part by me sharing the link on a Harlan Ellison fan page via Facebook. And that, unfortunately, is where the title of this post comes in.

If you clicked on the hyperlink above that takes you to the ad for Ellison's short story collection, you also saw an image of the man himself writing in the window of a bookstore. On that image is the name of the photographer. When I first attempted to transfer the image of the ad onto this blog and failed, I decided that, since the photo had a clear copyright credit written across it in huge letters, I could upload the picture by itself and provide a link to the order site. Apparently, I was incorrect in my assessment, as the following message from the group's moderator made painfully clear:

"I've removed your post from the [page] because it has come to my attention that you do not have permission to use that copyrighted photograph of Harlan taken by Rod Searcey, who is also a member... As of this writing, the only other person or entity that has Rod's verified permission to use the photograph is Joe Stefko, specifically for Charnel House's upcoming publication of "Ellison Under Glass". Ironically, while you honor Harlan in your blog and point out his admonition to "pay the writer", you still helped yourself to the work of another artist, in this case a photographer, without paying for or acquiring permission, despite the very obvious copyright Rod marks on his images. Your blog is excellent, and I appreciate your sincere homage to Harlan, but there is any number of public domain photographs of Harlan out there that you could use instead of Rod's. Please change the image as soon as possible, and then you can post the link to your blog again on the... page. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter."

 

Somehow my earnest attempt at honoring one of my writing idols had turned into a misguided copyright infringement situation. I confess my ignorance. I in no way understood that images used in advertising that are reprinted for the sole purpose of creating an extra platform for that advertising were an issue. I know I've done this before but it apparently never caught up to me until the one time it actually had the ability to hurt me professionally and personally.

 

Naturally I removed the image, which is why the current incarnation of the post no longer has one. Lesson learned. It's a lesson one would think I already learned when I was writing articles for different websites that required the use of public domain images only. So there it is, the tale of how I made an ass of myself.

 

But at least the group moderator called me a mensch and said he thought my blog was great. That was pretty cool.