copyrights

Hi everyone, I got a mail today for copyright infringement. I am reproducing the mail below for your understanding.

Someone has illegally altered my copyrighted and published poem "Daddy's Day" which you are displaying on your site at: http://dayswork.blogspot.com/2003_11_23_dayswork_archive.html You have the title as "On a Daddy's Day". "Daddy's Day" was first published in the year 2000 in the book "Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul". It was later published in the earlier part of 2001 in the book "Stories for a Teen's Heart 2". Because of those publications my poem ended up on the Internet and due to so many sites either displaying or circulating my poem without including my name, several have either plagiarized my poem or altered it, either by changing the title or adding lines pertaining to 9/11. As you'll note by the 2000 publication and copyright date of my poem, it was published before the 9/11, 2001 tragedy. The lines You see he was a fireman and died just this past year when airplanes hit the towers and made the meaning of freedom very clear do not belong in my poem. Someone took a national tragedy to infringe upon my copyright and in turn to break the law. A tell/tell sign that you are displaying the altered version of "Daddy's Day" usually starts with the first line. The line should read Her hair up in a ponytail and not Her hair was up in a ponytail. The word "was" does not belong in my poem. You are more than welcome to continue displaying my poem, but only if you do the following . . . use the correct title, which is "Daddy's Day", as well as the correct version, which would exclude the 9/11 lines and the word "was" in the opening line. Include the copyright date, which is 2000, add my name, Cheryl Costello-Forshey as the author. Also, you need to include the line, Cannot be copied or reproduced in any form without the written consent of the author. Furthermore, I ask that you mention that "Daddy's Day" has been published in the books "Chicken Soup for the Parent's Soul" and "Stories for a Teen's Heart 2". I realize that it seems like a lot to ask, but I'm sure you can understand why I'm asking. If you don't wish to do as I've requested then you will need to remove my poem from your site, otherwise, you are infringing on my copyright. By law, a person must exhaust all efforts (and prove that they have) in order to find the author of something before they can legally use it in any manner, otherwise, they are infringing upon that writer's copyright, which is against the law. Most people are not aware of that. As a personal favor I'd like to ask that you never display or circulate any material without knowing and including the author's name. So many writers are having their copyright infringed upon due to the Internet. There is a simple solution to finding the author of any material that you are hoping to display their work. Simply type a line, any line, from the story/poem within quotation marks into the google.com search engine and within seconds you should be able to find the author's name. Of course it may take a little bit more work than that, but in my case you would have found me within four seconds. If you don't know the author's name, please do not display the work because it leaves the door wide open to plagiarists. It's better to be a part of the solution for writers rather than part of the problem. Please contact me once you've made the changes. The longer my poem remains on your site without making those changes, the more damage that is caused for me. Warmly, Cheryl

So what do we do? I feel we should respect the copyright and do either one of the two options available:

1. Use the correct poem with due attributions and changes
2. Remove it completely

I am awaiting your thoughts on this. I particularly liked the penultimate paragraph in the mail where it speaks about avoiding copyright infringement. BTW, Vijay how was yesterday? My belated wishes to you, da. NO posts from you. Mumbai girsl keeping you busy?