What to Do When Your Work Is Stolen

What to Do When Your Work Is Stolen The unthinkable happens. Your work is published without your knowledge, consent or compensation. Whether it is large slushpiles, lack of time, memory lapses or non-existent ethics, theres no excuse for unprofessionalism or deceit. If the publication gets away with it once, they may do it again! Sure, you challenge them. You take the moral high ground, argue facts logically, point out copyrights, escalate to publishers or web domain owners; but your remonstrations fall on deaf ears. When editors dont remedy the situation early and sufficiently, heres how you can take action. Publicize Reputations carry businesses, but are fragile. Social media is a powerful tool, but an untamed beast. Nothing travels faster than bad news. Use Facebook, Twitter, blogs, or your own mailing lists of writers/editors/sources to make noise. However, before you bandy about anyones good name, remember publicity is a two-way street. Choose your words carefully. Dont post on a public forum in a passion. Defamation charges can be difficult to defend, and the last thing you need is to have your life stolen too. Invoice anyway What have you got to lose? Invoicing a publication that has published your work without permission sends a clear message that you are a professional who knows the industry. PayPal has a professional template and a reminder system. Make your invoice due on receipt and clearly state terms and conditions including penalties for delayed payments. Join forces Yours may not be a solitary incident. Ask around. Someone may have experience dealing with the publications idiosyncrasies and may be able to advise you. Hit them where it hurts Magazines exist for sales. Contact the retail outlets where the magazine is sold and inform them of the transgression. They may stop stocking it. Go to court Before you recourse to judiciary as your last resort, consider: a) Money: Lawyers fees are ruinous. Unless you claim Donald Trump as a relation or have engaged a lawyer to work pro bono, think twice. b) Time: Court battles can drag on for years. You may end up resigning your great-grandchildren to life revolving around courthouse working hours. c) Effort: Meetings, filing forms, understanding the law, dealing with red tape there are an awful lot of legal hoops to jump through that drain energy. Will your court battle drain you of the sheer physical stamina to attend your daughters graduation ceremony, steal the mental inclination to host that long-overdue dinner party, rob you of the emotional wherewithal to cope with a friends illness? d) Scandal: Court cases are open affairs. You may think truth and public interest are on your side, but theres no guarantee how the case will develop. Your reputation may emerge out of the ordeal smelling like a bouquet of roses, or it may crawl out looking like something the cat dragged in. Can you live with the local garbage-man and that cute shop assistant at your favorite boutique knowing all about your dirty laundry? e) Practicalities: If you live in the US and the publication is based in Singapore, how do you propose to duel? So weigh pros and cons, calculate cost versus benefit and take action. Or finally, write off the loss and move on. Its great to be principled and fight for fairness. Its also natural to feel to want to get even. But is the article worth the tumult? If not, consider it an occupational hazard and move on. Lesson learned. Whatever you do, hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. Remain positive, proactive, and dont stop writing. As freelancer Judee Fong says, Thieves steal only from the best! 🙂 ID: 181074Â © Abdone | Dreamstime Stock Photos

4 Rules for Setting Designations off with Commas

4 Rules for Setting Designations off with Commas 4 Rules for Setting Designations off with Commas 4 Rules for Setting Designations off with Commas By Mark Nichol Where do commas go in the vicinity of references to city and state names, or when identifying a date? Is a comma necessary before Jr. or II after a person’s name, or between a corporate name and a tag like Inc.? The rules for use of such functional punctuation follow: 1. City-and-State Designations In a city-and-state (or city-and-nation) construction, the state is set off from the city by a pair of commas: â€Å"A point near Rugby, North Dakota, is the geographic center of North America.† However, when describing an address, no comma appears between the state name or abbreviation and the ZIP code: â€Å"He listed his address as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20500.† (Note that DC, like all other abbreviations consisting of two or more uppercase letters, requires no punctuation. Also, all the letters in ZIP, an acronym for â€Å"Zone Improvement Plan,† should be capitalized.) When should you list a state or nation in addition to the name of a city, and which cities are familiar enough that their location does not need to be further specified? The distinction is arbitrary and based on context: A local newspaper need not identify the state in which an obscure nearby town is located, but a publication with national distribution should provide more information about the community’s location; the approach for a book depends on whether the setting is local or the text refers to a variety of locales. Companies and organizations that regularly publish content featuring references to geographic locations should establish, as part of a style guide, a list of names of cities that stand on their own and those that should be accompanied by the name of a state or nation. 2. Month-Day-and-Year References In a month-day-and-year phrase, set the year off between commas: â€Å"Children born on February 29, 2012, will have to wait four years for their next birthday party.† If only the month and year are used, no punctuation is necessary: â€Å"Precipitation levels in April 2012 were nearly double those recorded last year during that month.† The same rule applies for holidays with years: â€Å"The caption identified the occasion as Christmas Day 2012.† No punctuation is used in the day-month-year system: â€Å"The next sample will be collected on 1 May 2012.† 3. Generational Suffixes Though those who append Jr. or Sr. (Jnr. or Snr. in British English) to their name may choose to use one or two commas (depending on whether the designation is at the end of a sentence or in its midst) to set the element off, this style is outdated and seldom applied anymore. For the sake of consistency, always omit such punctuation. Also, this usage is not, and never has been, correct in association with II, III, and the like to denote use of an identical name down through successive generations. 4. Legal Endings Likewise, Inc., Ltd., and other designations of corporate structure are variously treated according to a particular company’s preference, but the dictates of consistency overrule such choices. Of course, if you work for a company that deliberately sets the element off with punctuation, follow that style, but the importance of consistency necessitates that in your employers’ publications or documents, you refer to any other company according to the same rule even if the other company omits punctuation in its treatment of its name. (But what if that other company is a strategic partner, and you feel the urge to honor its style? Resist I won’t tell if you don’t tell.) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Writing a Reference Letter (With Examples)Latin Plural EndingsHow to Send Tactful Emails from a Technical Support Desk