Intellectual Property

That sanctimonious son of a bitch has the audacity to accuse me — me, of all people — of copyright infringement,” Sam said, indignantly.

According to his complaint, Craig said that he handed you a detailed plot outline, including story arc and character profiles, for a novel he wanted to write and you told him it was pure dreck. But he says that your latest novel is based upon what he asked you to review,” Dean said.

“That lying piece of shit is nothing but an annoying turd and I swat him and his complaint away like a pesky mosquito,” Sam said.

“Craig claims that you foster a lot of resentment toward him because you were suffering from writer’s block and when he came up with something viable, you stole his intellectual property and used it as if you had created it,” Dean said.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Sam said. “He’s straining to fabricate a claim against me, his mentor, that has no merit whatsoever, Dean. I recommend you squash that little maggot before this gets all blown out of proportion.”

“I gotta tell you, Sam,” Dean said, “I read your book and I read the materials Craig said he gave you to review and comment on, and they are remarkably similar. Almost identical, actually.”

“Craig must have created those documents after he read my book and is taking my work and claiming it to be his,” Sam said.

“Actually, Sam, the metadata on the materials he printed from his computer was dated a full year and a half before your book was published,” Dean said. “But Craig is willing to settle out of court if you list him as co-author and share the royalties with him. Otherwise, he’ll see you in court. I’d advice you go along with the settlement offer.”


Written for these daily prompts: Word of the Day Challenge (sanctimonious), The Daily Spur (copyright), Your Daily Word Prompt (according), Ragtag Daily Prompt (mosquito), My Vivid Blog (foster), and Fandango’s One Word Challenge (strain).

The New WordPress Daily Prompts

In my Fandango’s Provocative Question post earlier today, I wrote, “After ending its daily prompts at the end of May 2018, the brilliant minds at WordPress apparently decided it was time to resurrect it.”

Some of you have commented on that post that you hadn’t seen these daily prompts and asked where they are. I blog exclusively on my iPhone, so what I see may be different from what shows up for you. But on my iPhone, this new WordPress daily prompt shows up on my Home screen when I open up the iOS app each morning (see screenshot below).

And speaking about daily prompts, I just saw this WordPress announcement in my Reader:

Bloganuary, according to WordPress, “is a month-long blogging challenge in January, where you’ll receive a daily writing prompt to inspire you to publish a post on your blog. You can respond to the prompts in any way you like: a story, a picture, a poem, a drawing, a recipe, or even a song. Anything goes!”

Seems WordPress has done a complete about face after abandoning its daily prompts four and a half years ago. It’s now bringing them back in spades — a new daily prompt each day on the Home screen and a separate daily prompt every day in January.

I guess what goes around comes around.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #193

FPQ

Welcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

After ending its daily prompts at the end of May 2018, the brilliant minds at WordPress apparently decided it was time to resurrect it. I’m not sure when they started it again — maybe the beginning of this month — but I haven’t responded to any of them yet. Have you? Are you happy that they’ve brought it back? And no, that is not this week’s provocative question.

But I did see one last week that I thought was a good one and I thought I’d use it for this week’s Fandango’s Provocative Question, which is:

What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? What made the decision so difficult?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

If you did respond to this question when WordPress posed it, feel free to put a link in the comments below so that others can read it.

FOWC with Fandango — Strain

FOWC

It’s December 7, 2022. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “strain.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.