This morning I signed in to Blogger to find a popup notifying me that a DMCA claim had been filed regarding a particular entry - the one about blogging anonymously.
Blogger have not emailed me the details of the claim (including, for instance, who filed it) and I have yet to see it appear on Chilling Effects. So I reinstated the post from 'Draft' to published. However I'm also aware that by doing this and not changing the content, there may be more in this episode yet to come.
At this point I can only speculate about who and why the claim was made. I've been over it time and again to try to see what, if anything, violates copyright and I'm stumped. It's all my own original writing, no images or audio are included, and I try to cite and link throughout to all the people who also have good advice and tools out there.
So for now and until there's word otherwise I'm going to assume this is by some crank who does not like what I have to say generally. Well, too bad. By the end of the week this blog and its content will have migrated to a UK-based service and will no longer be subject to US copyright bullshit. I'll be tweeting the relevant addresses when that happens.
In the meantime, I've asked if people could please reblog the full content of the post to keep the information out there. The fact that it's the single most popular post of all time on this blog says a lot about the need for this information to be public.
Here is a list of reblogs so far:
Linkmachinego
Korhomme
Chris of Arabia
Ishamaeli
Girl on the Net
It's Just a Hobby (and another sub-blog dedicated to the post)
Maggie McNeill
Neil Turner's Blog
Innocent Loverboy
Belle Morgan
Forty Something
Constance Commuter
Mr Smith
Lovehoney
If you would also like to reblog the content of the original post, please do. A credit is appreciated of course but more important to me is that the resources are widely cited for the writers who want or need to use them.
Meanwhile, Fleet Street Fox's blog today ends with a poem which more or less sums up my mood right now (just an excerpt - copyright innit):
"Make being disapproved of your hobby.
Make being disapproved of your aim.
Devise new ways of scoring points
In the Being Disapproved Of Game.
Let them disapprove in their dozens.
Let them disapprove in their hordes.
You'll find that being disapproved of
Builds character, brings rewards..."
(from "If People Disapprove Of You" by Sophie Hannah)
