Yesbut…

A columnist with the Cornell Daily Sun had trouble with his local Kinkos when he tried to get them to photocopy some of his published work.They demurred on copyright grounds:

I was miffed by his self-important anal-retentiveness. “I wrote that article, look, my picture is on the top,” I said. He told me that didn’t matter, that corporate Kinko’s was overburdened with copyright lawsuits, and consequently he wasn’t about to run my copy job.

OK, so he wrote the article. I bet it’s a nice picture, too. Doesn’t mean he owns the copyright. In fact, the bottom of the very web page that carries the diatribe carries the following legend:

So it turns out that he didn’t own the copyright after all, and while the Kinkos guy might have been a little more graceful (and don’t they have some kind of hold harmless form?), it turns out that he was probably right. What’s more, it’s precisely copy shops in college towns that are probably the biggest copyright violators.

Hey, kid! First rule of content creation: Just because you write it, doesn’t mean you own it. If you’re going to stay in the business, get used to it.

For my money, this is just a rant by some Ivy League senior who couldn’t get some townie to do what he wanted.

But I suspect his refusal to print my writing samples sprouted from seeds buried deeper in the human ego. It was an exercise in power. He totally had the power of refusing to copy my articles. And he didn’t.

All together now: Awww………