No Reblogging, Comments and Copyright Policies

Comments Policy

You’re welcome to leave comments on this blog, and I will do my best to reply promptly.

The following policies apply.  If you don’t like the policies, please don’t waste your time or mine leaving a comment.

1. Links to promotional pages, videos, profiles, and other commercial content are stripped. I use a high-quality spam blocker, and do my best to screen comments for spam.
2. The name from your email address will be used as your name on the comments you leave unless your comment gives me reason to hide your identity.  Names like “Best Lawyer in Phillie” will be replaced, as will any I find offensive.  If your email address does not include your name, I will create one for you. I don’t promote products and services on your blog, so don’t expect to promote your products and services on my blog.
3. I reserve the right to edit comments, reply to comments via email as well as via published reply on this blog, and remove comments at any time. I promise not to remove every comment that disagrees with me, corrects my facts or grammar, or offers a differing opinion — but this is my blog, and I reserve the absolute right to publish what I want.  You should do the same on yours.
4. If you want a personal reply and do not want your comment published, leave me your name and email or Twitter address in your comment and mark it “do not publish — please reply privately.” I won’t promise to respond immediately to every comment, but I will respond as soon as I have time.
5. I don’t engage in flame wars here or in other forums. I do try to be civil, and appreciate the same from others.

Last, but not least, if you post it in a comment on my blog, I reserve the right to use it in the blog. If you do not want your comment published, or you do not want me to include it in my blog or publicize it, tell me so in the comment. Otherwise, anything you post on my site is fair game for my writing here or elsewhere.

DMCA and Copyright Policy

I try to avoid infringing on anyone else’s copyrights, and I take my own copyrights seriously. Unless otherwise noted in the body of the blog post or a photo caption, everything on this blog is registered and or protected by U.S. copyright law, and I will take appropriate action to protect my rights when necessary.

If you find that I have infringed on your copyright, please contact me at this link. I will immediately take any required steps to bring my blog into compliance with U.S. law by removing the offending content as soon as possible.

Do Not Use WordPress’s “Reblog” Function to Steal Content

Do not use the WordPress Reblog function to “share” an entire post from this blog. Consent or permission to use the WordPress “reblogging” feature is explicitly refused.

It is my opinion that the WordPress feature that allows an entire post to be reposted without my permission is copyright infringement. I will take all necessary legal steps to protect my work.

If you “reblog” anything that originates here, expect a polite request to remove it if you use your real email address in the notice for the “reblogging”. If the notice of the reblogging that I receive from WordPress does not contain a working email address, I have no choice except to move directly to a DMCA takedown notice.

After the polite request to remove “reblogged” content is sent, I will check the infringing site 24 hours after the notice was sent via email. If my content remains on the infringing site, the next step is a DMCA takedown notice. If it is not removed after that, expect to hear from my lawyer.

Just because technology allows you to do something, does not make it right to do so — I can’t stress enough how serious I am about the whole “reblogging” thing. Don’t do it.  Why? because I let one slide last year, and the “reblogger” added so many errors that I wound up getting trolled and then doxxed.

Being “trolled” means being attacked or made fun of in a hurtful way on social media, creating permanent Google links that harm one’s reputation. Being “doxxed” means that one of the trolls took it a step further and posted personal information (address, workplace, the names of children in my family, etc.) with threats of physical harm and calls for others to “go after” me. The people who thought it was fun to trash my reputation because of what a “reblogger” posted under my name were hurtful — but the whole issue came about because someone decided to use the WordPress “reblogging” tool to steal content, which she then butchered to make her point.

Reblogging is not flattering. It is not “fair use”. It is not “a guest post”. It is theft.  So let me make it crystal clear: do NOT reblog anything from this site without advance permission.