Editing And Emailing

A couple of weeks ago I was making the final round of edits to my new book when I decided to do a quick search of my previous titles to see if they were still available for sale. Given the fact that this new volume would incorporate basically all of the previously published works I was going to pull the printing of the previous collections…. Don’t want multiple versions in the marketplace at the same time. Well, that was my original intent but it wasn’t what I found.

As it turns out, the publisher for my previous collection had gone under in the decade since my chapbook was put into print. I guess you could say that this issue was resolved much faster than expected. However, when I dug a little deeper, I did find a couple of websites that had scanned the contents and basically made the book available for digital download. This is not something that I approved or appreciated so I did some research and found the people with whom I needed to speak from the websites.

For those of you who may run into this issue of copyright infringement, here is the DMCA Notice letter that I sent:

To Whom It May Concern, 

My name is Sean and I am the author of Kaddish Diary. Your website, SAMPLE.net is infringing on at least one copyright owned by me.

A book was copied onto your servers without permission. The original book and poems, to which I own the exclusive copyrights, can be found at:

http://www.isbnsearch.org/isbn/1589983637

The unauthorized and infringing copy can be found at:

http://SAMPLE.net/kaddish-diary

This letter is official notification under Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”), and I seek the removal of the aforementioned infringing material from your servers and website. I request that you immediately notify the infringer of this notice and inform them of their duty to remove the infringing material immediately, and notify them to cease any further posting of infringing material to your server in the future.

Please also be advised that law requires you, as a service provider, to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receiving this notice. Under US law a service provider, such as yourself, enjoys immunity from a copyright lawsuit provided that you act with deliberate speed to investigate and rectify ongoing copyright infringement. If service providers do not investigate and remove or disable the infringing material this immunity is lost. Therefore, in order for you to remain immune from a copyright infringement action you will need to investigate and ultimately remove or otherwise disable the infringing material from your servers with all due speed should the direct infringer, your client, not comply immediately.

I am providing this notice in good faith and with the reasonable belief that rights I own are being infringed. Under penalty of perjury I certify that the information contained in the notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved.

Should you wish to discuss this with me please contact me directly.

Regards,

Sean

Unfortunately, after sending off this request and continuing the search for some of the other books in which my work has been included, I found that Charles Fishman’s anthology, Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, was also out of print due to the publisher discontinuing operations at the end of last year. I guess I chose the right time to work on the manuscripts that have been sitting on my computer for the last ten years. Stay tuned for details about this and other books that I am releasing to the masses this year!

Alumni Updates

They even changed the logo within the past 10 years. 

Over the past several months I have been receiving regular communications from my Alma mater, Endicott College. Since it has now been a decade since I graduated from the New England school, the alumni association is obviously ramping up efforts to bring everyone back for the ten year reunion. While the emails and mailings have been plentiful to the point of becoming borderline annoying, it has at least been a welcomed change from the frequent request for donations.

Obviously, with all the changes that have happened recently and the plans that we have already scheduling for the summer month, we will not be driving up to Massachusetts and the beautiful coastal campus this year. Thankfully, we made the trip just 5 years ago for our one year anniversary and so I was at least able to show my wife were I spent four years of my life. At some point we will bring our son up there and show him around too.

While I may not be able to attend, that doesn’t mean that I cannot reconnect (or in some cases connect) with many of those who finished their undergraduate experience the same day I did. In-between correspondences from the college, I got an email from a former classmate addressed to all of those a decade removed from their North Shore education. It was an invitation to offer an update and share it with everyone included on the email chain. While I didn’t know many of other students beyond the classroom, preferring the poets and professors around me, it has been interesting reading many of the updates.

It is interesting to read where people have ended up and the experiences that they have had since leaving college. While not nearly as interesting as those I have read but, so far, more interesting than those who have yet to write anything, I look forward to sharing my own update at some point within the next week. Basically, it all boils down to a simple timeline since that warm May day: published a book (and other pieces in magazines), graduate school, conversion, met my wife and got married, various jobs, moving to various places, writing, lodge, and starting a family. I think that pretty much covers everything.

So now that I have a basic template all I need to do is find the time to write the email. Of course, that will have to wait until I get over the fact that it has already been 10 years when the memories of my time there are still so vivid. I guess great memories stay with us longer than we realize.