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Fair Use of Original Copyright Material found at Zyra's Website

Zyra's website has a great many pages of original material, written by Zyra, and enjoyed by a lot of people around the world. Zyra's website consists of the primary site Zyra.org.uk , and a few others scattered around including Zyra TV, Zyra NET, Zyra info, - for a full list see Zyra Sites. Among the thousands of pages of interesting original material, copyright Zyra, there are some which are so well liked that some people have pinched copies of them to put on their own sites, blogs, newsgroups, etc. Now let's be fair about this! If you're going to pinch a copy of a page, please do the right thing and give me a link! (Make sure you get the address right, as it may not be the same as your guess!).

You are not allowed to steal my stuff, but you are allowed to quote it! Here, let me explain the difference: If you take a copy of a page such as How to Hypnotise a Chicken, or How to Get Rich, or All Speakers can be used as Microphones, etc, and put it online somewhere with no reference to its original source, then that's plagiarism (stealing). But if you take a copy and put it somewhere but add something like "This page is a quote from Zyra's website http://www.zyra.org.uk/ [include correct link]" then that is a quote, and it's much fairer than stealing the stuff!

To demonstrate examples of good and bad practice already encountered, WELL DONE to someone at Digg for quoting the page If Operating Systems Ran the Airlines by adding a proper link in to the original page! In thanks, I have given a "Well Done" message on that page, as the link has done my site some good! In contrast, "boo! hiss!" to Yahoo (down with Yahoo), who have failed to resolve a simple case where some kid stole the page The Earth is Smoother than a Snooker Ball and a few other pages and did not credit the original author. As a result, I condemn Yahoo and I am campaigning to boycott Yahoo until this is sorted out!

This is a serious matter, and it is made worse by the knock on effects. I'll explain: Supposing you have written a brilliant essay for your school homework and you are about to hand it in to the teacher in the hopes of getting an "A" grade for it, or a gold star, or whatever honour they give for excellent work these days. But before you get to school, the bully steals your work, copies it, and hands it back to you. You'd be quite upset to find the bully getting an award for work which YOU had done. Worse, though, is when the teacher finds two identical essays and accuses you of stealing the bully's work (as the copy is the same stuff as the original, it's hard to tell which is the real work and which is the copy). This happens with web pages, believe me! On the Internet, search engines are like the teachers, and sometimes they make the right decisions, and sometimes they make the wrong decisions. I have even seen my own original pages marked down because some thieving scoundrel has stolen my stuff and a search engine has made the mistake, like the mistaken teacher in the example.

We the honest people can fight back against injustice like this! Please link to this site! If you link to me, and if you QUOTE my material and give me a credit and a link, it will strengthen my website and weaken the people who STEAL from me. If enough of us do the right thing, we will defeat those who do wrong. You've seen it in movies; you know how it works.

It's also worth knowing that I have an interesting idea about how to punish those who do wrong. I believe in people taking responsibility. If you're a kid, you have to take some responsibility for what you do, but if you're a big company you have to take a much bigger responsibility and behave in a much more responsible way! Therefore, I am much more keen to punish Yahoo than I am to punish the kid who stole my stuff to put on his blog. In terms of correct justice and punishment, I don't agree with the zero tolerance nonsense which you see all too often, and instead prefer a well measured approach of reasonableness. So, to the kid I say "Do the right thing: Give me a proper credit for my work and a link to my site", whereas to Yahoo, who really should be big enough to know better, I consider the corporate arrogant pseudo-deity should be punished! A "run on the bank" mass panic selling off of their corporate shares as a public reaction to their misbehaviour would be justice.

While I was writing this page, I had to leave off as a herd of cows had arrived on my garden! It's quite a big garden and I am not upset about cows on it. However, I won't allow them to trample on the flower beds. So I just persuaded them to move into the rough part of the garden that could do with some mowing. That is a measured response.

So, anyway, to sum it up: If you copy one of my pages, please give me a link and a credit. Is that fair? Also see Please link to this site and How to put a banner link up, and the more general page about intellectual property and copyright

For legal purposes, the copyright of material at this site is reserved. Copying it for commercial use (without permission) is specifically forbidden and cumulative charges are made for breach of this! The charges for Yahoo plagiarism are stacking up and may soon be expensive enough to tempt a No win No fee Lawyer to take on the case!