Got A Ukulele and Copyright

It's really sad to have to post this, but I am getting really tired of other websites using my content without my permission. It stinks. And even more sadly, writing this post won't change a damn thing.

The thing is, I am not a business. I don't have a team of lawyers, so there is little you can do when it DOES happen, but equally there is something else I want to point out. And that's that I am not trying to come across like some restrictive loon in stopping people using things. I want to be fair.

You see, ALL of the content on Got A Ukulele is covered by a Creative Commons 4 Licence (as it states in the footer). That means that you are FREE to use the original content. You can copy it, you can share it, but you have to do it in the original format. And in order to have that privilege you have to agree to three terms:

Attribution - you have to provide a link back to the original content

Non Commercial - obvious

No Derivatives - you cant trim stuff out, take pictures out of context, modify the content and that sort of thing.

I think they are really fair rules in the spirit of social media myself, yet some scumbags seem to think it is ok to just lift what they want like it's a free for all. A while ago I even had to turn off the ability to copy and paste text from the site as some scumbags chose to copy whole swathes of the blog (I'm talking big sections here that took years to build up) and pass them off as their own work on their sites...  So that means people now can't copy the song sheets that was the EXPRESS intention... And that really upsets me.  But ah, you know - the few spoil it for the many. This is why whe cant have nice things....

I know mistakes happen, I've probably made mistakes myself, but it just KEEPS happening. And it's always the same SORT of site - the Facebook Page or the Review Site that clearly has no other original content in it and that thrives on copying other peoples work just to build traffic.. The sites that just list reviews that are basically text culled from Amazon reviews. Or the pages that just share endless mindless ukulele memes. (Yes, I've had my photographs used in memes...)..

Come on people - stop ripping off other creators of content. Use your own brains for once. I can't sue you and you know that, so you give it a shot anyway. But I WILL expose you far and wide. I will tell the ukulele community what low life you are.

And ultimately no - this ISN'T the end of the world and it does kind of smack of 'first world problems' but it's still damn annoying. The amount of time that goes into this site I really don't think people understand.

Thanks for listening. Again...

More on the Creative Commons Licence that covers this site on this link.

© Barry Maz
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THANKS!