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Last Saturday Of Summer 2020
Goodbye, 🌞 Summer 🌡️, and not a minute too soon! I love that there’s no last-minute surge of heat this time around. 🍂 Autumn 🍂 is here whether it’s here or not.
Worthy Motto
Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud. ~Sophocles
Sadly, it’s not the Democraps’ motto. It would be nice if they had a shred of decency but we’ve got a lot of BS to look forward to in the weeks leading up to this year’s election. Simply put…
#StopVotingForDemocrats!!!
Okay, I’ve got that out of my system and we can get on with the fabulous glory of the rapidly approaching season of 🍂 Autumn 🍂.
4K Autumn Forest & Relaxing Piano Music – Beautiful Fall Leaf Colors in 4K UHD – 2 Hours
Ahh, the colors, the flavors, the chill in the air and the cozy warm embrace of your special someone. What more could anyone possibly ask?
Intellectual Property
Man Attempts to Enter Hogwarts in London
Sometimes, a creative person comes up with something that becomes such an iconic part of the culture that people feel compelled to try it out for themselves. I believe that once holography becomes more sophisticated, British Railways will actually put an arch there and cover it with a holographic wall that Harry Potter fans can actually run through. In the meantime, Universal Orlando already has their version.
The most important thing about intellectual property vs. creative expression is that copyright law was created not to stifle creativity but to encourage creativity. ~Shepard Fairey
While you can’t copyright an idea, something as specific as Platform 9¾ is able to be protected as intellectual property within the context of a book series or movie franchise.
What can be copyrighted?
That’s where I’m heading with my milieux. Since I have my specific story environments spelled out in digital media, that covers the “original work of authorship” and “fixed in a tangible medium of expression” requirements expressed in the video above. Additionally, I have domain names for my milieux which are both original and tangible media (websites).
You could write a story like mine. You could set it in a time and place like mine. You could probably even use my character names. Even so, my stories are mine and you couldn’t write my stories unless you were me. Conversely, even using the exact same elements of person, place and time, I could not possibly write your stories without being you.
Even so, copyright is legal protection for the specifics of creativity. I could certainly name a character Harry Potter or James Bond as long as they were simply people in the story.
If my Harry Potter is an African-American shoe salesman in Irondale, OH and not a British wizard with a lightning bolt scar on his head, I’m certainly skirting the law a bit but I’m not infringing on Ms. Rowling‘s copyright.
Likewise, if my James Bond is a Hmong Trans-Male FedEx delivery driver from Randolph, AL and not a spy in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, I’m still tangling with trouble but not actually in trouble. I’m sure there are plenty of people in this world whose names are actually James Bond and they’re not infringing copyright, either.
As the video mentioned, you can’t copyright facts and a real person with a real name that happens to match a fictional character’s name is essentially a fact. On the other hand, completely made-up names like Zaphod Beeblebrox or Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander are definitely original and in tangible media (books, TV, movies). Therefore, they’re able to be protected with copyright.
So, as long as it’s an “original work of authorship” and “fixed in a tangible medium of expression“, it’s protected automatically under copyright law. The thing is, so are all of the other individual variations.
For instance, Matthew Freeman aka Captain Freedom is able to be copyrighted by me in association with the Sentinels series and milieu because he is not nor is he generally like the Captain Freedom from The Running Man or the Captain Freedom from Angry Birds or even the Captain Freedom from the comics. It’s an awesome superhero name and, as you can see, it’s able to be applied to very different characters in very different settings without stepping on anyone else’s copyright unless you’re actually stealing one of those very specific variations of the character.
Perseverance
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. ~Dale Carnegie
I’ve always been a fan of “slow and steady wins the race“. Sometimes it takes me longer than anticipated to accomplish even the simplest of things.
I was working on a report yesterday for one of our clients and I had it 99.99% done when MS Access crashed and an hour of meticulous formatting and content rearrangement just went poof. 😠 So, I went back in and got it 99.98% done when MS Access crashed AGAIN and an hour of meticulous formatting and content rearrangement went poof AGAIN! 😠😠 So, I rebooted and went back in. I got it entirely done and checked it in.
🎈 Woohoo!!! 🥳 Success!!!!! 🎉
Okay, not so quick there. I went to test it quickly before reporting that it was available. Run the report and it went poof AGAIN! 😠😠😠
Why?
Because there was a code error in the report formatting part of the report!!!
😠F😠M😠L😠
Of course, the VBA code was referring to fields I had deleted in accordance with the client’s change request! 😠😠😠😠😠
So, I finally got into the code module for the report and got rid of the offending object references so that damned thing would open without blowing up the Report Module and notified the client her changes were now available for testing.
🌈🎈🥳🎉🌤️ No biggie.
Could have taken an hour if MS Access hadn’t blasted out on me 😠T😠W😠I😠C😠E😠, causing all of my changes to be lost 😠T😠W😠I😠C😠E😠. However, I did persevere and got it done and delivered.
I’d like to say I endured it all with grace and patience but it would be an utter lie. No, I was totally pissed and not fit for polite company.
Even so, that’s one of the awesome things about working remotely. When you work from home, you can be as much of a raving 🦀-ass as you want and still get your work done.
Life is awesome even if MS Access is kind of not…
The important thing is that we’re finally at a point where the virtual office is a viable alternative to driving all over creation just to be cooped up in an office for a fixed period of time. There’s not a lot to be thankful for where it comes to COVID19, but the sudden necessity of the virtual office is definitely one of the great things to occur this year.
The next best thing is that now that I have a substantial income again, I can start setting money aside to get my self-publishing business up and running the way one ought to do such things. That’s another case of “slow and steady wins the race“.
That’s more than enough for one day, my friends. I hope you’re having a wonderful 🍂 Autumn–like 🍂 weekend.