What’s so not cool…

I don’t usually post ranty, unhappy posts. But this needs saying.

It was brought to my attention that my Elements of Retrofit outtake was added to Goodreads. *sigh* Okay, as much as it irks me, I can’t stop that. I did however, when posting that outtake, ask that it not be added, but whatever. Like I said, I can’t stop it.

BUT THEN I realized that the cover of Elements of Retrofit had been defaced and added as the book cover!

Like seriously, WTAF?

Literally, the original cover was written over with the outtake title and posted as the cover…

And that, my dear people, is so not cool.

Just so we’re clear here, I do not own the rights to cover art of books owned by Pride Publishing.  I, being the author, can use said cover art for promotional work. I have express contractual permission to do that, including the outtake banner I made – which includes their cover.  Other people do not. Unless they’ve contacted Pride Publishing and said “Hey do you mind if I infringe on all copyright and licensing rights and write over the top of the original cover art and post it on Goodreads?” which I’m pretty sure they didn’t, because I’m pretty sure Pride Publishing would have laughed all the way to their legal team. Just sayin’.

I have contacted a Goodreads librarian, who then very kindly had to contact a Super Librarian (they have capes and everything) to ask that the cover (and hopefully the “book”) be removed.

So before you think it’ll be cool to go and waste a bunch of people’s time to deface a book cover and add it to GR, my very humble little piece of advice is, please don’t.

And while we’re on the topic of using other people’s pictures/photographs (that you downloaded and/or didn’t purchase) for ‘fan-art’, that’s illegal too.  I guess it’s only a matter of time before someone in the m/m community gets made an example of and sued.  Using pictures found online is a tricky business, and I love a great piece of fan-art as much as the next person.  But the rule is simple:  don’t post what you don’t own. I buy most of my images for my promotional art for between $1 to $30, so if you don’t want to buy images, don’t do it.

In case you were unaware of how these things work, I’ll leave a link to another blog for your perusal, courtesy of BlogHer.com.

WHY NOT TO USE COPYRIGHTED PICS YOU FIND ONLINE

Or, alternatively, you can just Google “Can I get sued for using copyrighted pictures online?” and settle in to read the eleventy billion responses.

But, as I said above, I can’t stop anyone from doing these things. I would just really REALLY appreciate it if people didn’t use pictures they don’t have rights to, especially when that picture has my name on it. I’d rather not have my name dragged through the mud when the copyright holder takes you to court, mmkay?

On a much brighter, happier note, I hope everyone has a great week!