Saturday, June 20, 2009

Surprised by a story on the web

I woke up this morning to quite a surprise. Gabi asked if I had talked to a reporter recently. She has a Google alert in my name and got notice this morning of an article about me on Examiner.com. It was a huge article by Mike Szymanski outing the hell out of me -- OK, I was already out -- a special Fathers Day story: "Bisexual father recalls the tragedy of his bi son's discrimination and suicide."

It's an old story. He took it right off my website and included tons of links to family pictures, etc.

I'm getting old. My brain cells are withering away. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning. The point being that the name Mike Szymanski sounds familiar, but I can't remember ever talking to him. I don't mind the story being out there for all the world to read, but I wonder if there was copyright infringement. I did put copyright notices on my website and did not give permission to reprint such huge sections, which I'm pretty sure goes far beyond fair use quotations. Still, I don't mind. I'm glad that Szymanski thought my story was worth publishing, and hopefully it will touch some hearts and minds in a positive way.

2 comments:

Emmett said...

Szymanski is familiar because he used to work at the Olympian.

His post isn't all that bad. He did blockqote several long sections, which is sort of dumb, but he did link back to your blog and never took credit for writing what you wrote.

But, at the same time, they are looooong sections he quoted. Almost worth just pointing readers to your blog and saying "read the entire thing over there."

Alec Clayton said...

I knew there had to be a reason I recognized that name. Now I remember him. And I do appreciate that he credited me and linked back to my blog.