First I want to explain what's going on with copyrights. Now, let me be honest with you--I haven't officially registered any of my words or images. As far as I'm concerned, the notices I display are simply legal notices in a minimal way, with the implicit hope that people will respect the notices in good faith. As I understand copyright law, once you create "intellectual property", be it photographs, drawings, poems, articles, editorials, stories, computer software, or whatever, once you create it, it is by law automatically copyrighted by the person who created it. The tricky part is enforcement, or proving your case in court. I'm no expert in legal and publishing matters, but I think real professional artists, writers, photographers, and publishing companies take much more proactive steps than I have done, in order to back up their copyrights. I don't have the resources, expertise, nor the motivation to do more than simply post the notice. For me it's more of a matter of principle. If you want to read my poems to friends, quote me, put my pictures on your wall or on your computer screen background, I totally give you my blessing. But what I am against is you using my material and attributing it to yourself, or even worse, making money off of it without giving me credit or a share of your profit. I know if you really want to do that, I can't really stop you, but I have spoken my mind. I doubt if this will really be a problem, cause I don't really think my material is really that magnificent, nor do I think my site has that much exposure. But I'll tell you what really motivates me to take these steps, symbolic though they may be. Both of my grandfathers, both my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandfather, invented things that other people patented and got the credit and money for. I think that's terrible and dispicable, and I find it sad that people would do such a thing. So I'm afraid of falling into the same pattern, being taken as a sucker. So that's why I'm putting up the copyright notices, at least as a matter of principle, as I said earlier. But ultimately, the joy of knowing you created something beautiful and/or useful, and just the simple satisfaction of creation--ultimately, this is more important than money or recognition. We're all going to be forgotten anyway, but the things we create and leave behind will hopefully benefit others even after we are dead and forgotten. So that's that and I've said my piece.
I have one more point about copyrights, and that is the date. My general practice with my website is to use the date when I first post whatever it is on the website. In some cases, the year that I create the work, and the year that I post it on the website are different years. In those cases, I still use the date when I post it on the site. Frankly, some of the old poems I have, and old photos I have lying around that I decide to scan and put on the website, I don't even remember when I took some of those pictures or wrote those poems. So at least I know when I'm posting it, so I use that. Basically, I want to at least try to be consistent with the practices, processes, and procedures on this website. I don't really trust myself to look at every picture I find in a box and say to myself, "Now, what year did I take this? Was it 1986? Or maybe it was 1992...I don't know for sure...". Might as well just use the year when I post it on the site. The main reason I think it's important to write so many words about a rather trivial thing, is to make it clear that the order that I put stuff up on my site is not necessarily the chronological order of when the pictures were taken or the poems were written. I'm sorry, but I'm just not very linear in my thinking.
Let's see...is there anything else? Oh, yes--where do I get this phrase "The Bard of Oakland Bay, and Other Such Territories"? I can explain, but it's going to be a challenge to do it briefly, eloquently, elegantly, and in a way that won't leave you thinking I'm insane (if you don't already). The phrase itself was actually coined by a friend of mine in a letter he sent to me. I happen to live in California, and more specifically, in what is known as the San Francisco Bay Area. I believe that by the general rules of nomenclature for American cities and regions, it would be called the San Francisco Metropolitan Area. But this area has its own quirks, and many would say it's full of fruits, nuts, and flakes. In any case, the name of the bay that this metropolitan area surrounds is San Francisco Bay. Oakland is a city on the other side of San Francisco accross this bay. Many of you have probably heard of it, especially since Oakland is home to a professional baseball team as well as a professional American football team. There is a major bridge which connects these two cities, and you could also say connects San Francisco with the rest of the continent, spanning said bay. This bridge is called the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Obviously this is meant to convey that this bridge connects San Francisco and Oakland, and crosses the bay. But I can see how one could be confused by the way it sounds, because it almost makes it sound like it's "Oakland Bay", and not "San Francisco Bay". So I'm assuming that's how my friend came up with the "Oakland Bay" part of the phrase. I don't remember if he actually clarified this for me or not. Now, as for the "Bard" part of it, Bard has been sort of a nickname for myself used by this guy and me. How I got this nickname is a convoluted and complicated story, but suffice it to say that "bard" basically means "poet". Ok, that leaves us with the rest of the phrase: "and Other Such Territories". Well, what can I say about that, really? I guess that's kind of self-explanatory. Am I right? If you still really care and have actually read to this point, send me an email and I'll send you back a more explicit explanation. For that matter, if you actually read this whole tirade, and take the time and make the effort to email me about it, I'd say you deserve a pie or a side of beef or something like that. I assume nobody will take me up on this, but just to be on the safe side, I'd better "cover my bases" and say right now that I can't actually commit to sending you a bag of ice cream or a leg of lamb or whatever, or a box of croutons or a casque of capers or something. But hey, have fun imagining your favourite food! I commend you in that.
I'm seriously digressing, and somewhat purposely. Let's see. What else do I need and/or want to explain? Well, really, there are additional things that could arguably merit being discussed in this document, but I don't want to drag this on any more than I already have, and I feel that I made the main points that I wanted to make. I may add to this later. The commentary/editorial/opinion section has had and probably will have more overlap with this document in discussing this site. So I think the bases are covered. Man, this is beginning to sound overly verbose, self-indulgent, and self-referential. It reminds me of documentation I've seen on Linux utilities and software, where their documents often seem, at least to me, to talk more about the nature of the documents themselves, and referring you to other related documents, than about the software or utilities themselves.
Very well, then. Take care of yourselves, y'all, and enjoy life in every way you can, and I give you my blessings in your search for the truth and what is right.
