About my poems

On my art sim I run several Art Galleries for other artists, two with wonderful mystical and wiccan paintings, by Samuel Edelstein and Mickie Mueller, and three with awesome erotic and kinky photography, by Marcus J. Ranum, Francois Benveniste and Igor Amelkovich. I'm very proud to be their Second Life Art Gallery Manager and will write about every one of them in this blog in this new year 2010. But after this new year has started, I need to adress something about my poetry first.

Four of my galleries exhibit my own Poetry Art: Witches Poetry, Mystic Poetry, Sensual Mystic Poetry, and BDSM Poetry. All my poems are my Intellectual Property and Copyrighted © . If you like a poem that much that you like to use it in your SL profile, you are ONLY allowed to do so IF you credit me as the writer, and ONLY IF you use the original writing of the poem. Not crediting the author, or disrespecting the original poem by altering it, is art theft, and will be dealt with as such.

It's not a really nice start of the new year that I had to message several people in SL to please respect my Intellectual Property. I now have put the writing above also in my profile and have added a notecard to every poem and in every poetry gallery. Even put signs up with it. Ofcourse it is nice when people like something I made so much they want to use it, but, my folks taught me not to take what is not mine. For some reason people seem to think, when they like something and it is in some way possible to take it, they just do and tell themselves it's oke. It's not oke. It's art theft.

Those are my poems, my creations, my babies, coming from my heart and soul. By law you are expected to respect that. It's called Intellectual Property and Copyright. It means you don't have any right to use my poems in any way without my written permission. The ONLY use I hereby allow is to put my poem in your Second Life Profile IF you credit me as the writer AND use the ORIGINAL poem ONLY. Note that I ONLY allow use of my poems like this in Second Life Profiles ONLY. Any use of my poems other than this in Second Life, or for whatever reason outside Second Life, is art theft and will be dealt with as such.

One person in SL put the poem in profile without crediting me. Another person saw it and assumed it would be written by the owner of the profile and put the poem in their profile with the name of the other person as the writer. I happened to read the profile, I felt so hurt. There was my creation and someone else was being credited for it. I messaged both, and they changed it both and apologized. The first person said to never have meant this to happen. But this is what happens if you don't credit any author properly.

There now also is an altered version of one of my poems, maliciously altered and handed out to other people. So I found one of my poems being altered in several profiles. Everyone I messaged so far has changed it and apologized. The person who altered the poem did not. I told him I'd sue him and then he removed it, saying he would use it elsewhere then. Well, I have a message for this person: you damn well better not, because I will find ya and sue ya ass off! I think I made myself pretty clear now.

It's very easy to enjoy art and poetry by respecting Intellectual Property. It takes not much effort. Just think of something that is dear to you and how it would make you feel if someone else would take it. So that's how artists feel if you don't respect their Intellectual Property. So now you know. So now, after reading this, you don't have any excuse anymore. So now you will always respect someone elses Intellectual Property and Copyright. Right? Right!

Have a Blessed New Year 2010,

Zena Zemlja,
Poet, Artist, Art Gallery Owner.