Copyright Follow-Up – Fair Use

What I really like about my friend Cindy, besides the fact that she sews and blogs is that she is honest.  I would much rather have an honest person tell me what they think, than someone tell me what I want to hear while their face tells me otherwise.  And because I appreciate honesty, I also try to be honest.  She told me that I sounded a bit miffed in my previous post.  Really?  I asked.  So I just want to set the record straight that I wasn’t angry.  In fact, I wouldn’t blog if I was angry.  I just don’t like to air my emotional laundry like that.  :o)  And just in case you dont’ already know, I am, in general, a happy person. :o)  See that smiley face?  That’s me.  :o) Happy! :o)

I also want to apologize to those of you that I made paranoid.  I have to mention that in my humble and absolutely non-lawyer-ish opinion, linking to other people’s blogs or sites is absolutely fine.  There is something called the “fair-use” doctrine that allows people to comment on copyrighted works.  Click the link to see more.

I’ve also been asked a bunch of follow-up questions.  Lots of interesting stuff.  I’ll keep doing my research and perhaps see a intellectual property attorney and give you my 2 cents at that time.  I want to be careful not to act like I know what I’m talking about when I’ve just barely scratched the surface.  Thanks for ALL your notes of encouragement.  It sounds like we crafter/bloggers struggle with a lot of the same things.

Let me leave you with the funniest honest thing Cindy told me last week while we were sewing together late one night:  “The next time you take a picture for your Mini Patchfolio cover, you might want to use a nicer pen.”  That cracked me up because all my pens are cheapy pens and I thought no one would notice.  Ha!  She’s absolutely right, of course.  :o)  Look for nicer pens in the future, Cindy!