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The Permeable Threat to the Digitized Being of Us

What’s going on with the latest rash of online password thefts?  What is the thrill in posting this information on the internets?  Is possessing the passwords of other people an ego boost or a public rant against insecure information stored on the web?

First LinkedIn, then eHarmony, and now possibly Last.fm. As the number of sites falling victim to password hackers continues to grow, the questions are flooding in: are these incidents all connected? And, perhaps more importantly, who’s next?

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Is Copying the Mona Lisa Inspiration or Stealing?

On October 26, 2007 in our WordPunk blog, I wrote an article — Is Stealing Ever Good? — advocating the theft of inspiration as a qualified original intent:

Some call stealing inspiration, but if you see or experience something and then change or employ those experiences in your life — you have effectively borrowed and stolen the thoughts of others and I wholly encourage that effort.

I am not condoning plagiarism, but I am supporting the opportunity to consider and use ideas that are not your own because there are no original thoughts left in the world.

Over the weekend, I read a fascinating article in the New York Times indicating that the world-famous “copy” of the Mona Lisa was probably actually sanctioned by the great Leonardo da Vinci himself:

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David W. Boles is THE Script Professor!

Let there be NO DOUBT on the Internets that I, David W. Boles, am, are, and forever shall be, THE Script Professor!  I have been  THE Script Professor since November 28, 2005, so let there be no question to my authenticity as pale imitators and purposeful thieves step forward and try to wrangle in private and modify in public my mark to serve their selfish ends by fogging reality and futzing legal authority.

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Kelley Williams-Bolar and the Stolen Better School District

When I was in grade school I attended West Windsor Plainsboro Middle School based on the fact that I lived in the West Windsor area. My parents relocated in 1990 to Princeton, partly due to the fact that the public schools in the area were supposed to be a lot better. Of course, I ended up attending The Peddie School, a private school that was not at all tied to where I lived as people came to the school from all over the world.

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The White Man Indian Giver

There is nothing worse in the world than preciousness in transient self-congratulatory public notices that claim to do one good while punishing another.  I’ll give you an example in the guise of: The White Man Indian Giver.

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Ten Ninety-Two

A content thief — by any other name — would still stink.

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Nick Simmons Steals from Bleach

If I set up a factory and started producing cars that looked just like Volkswagen Beetles from the early 1960’s and called them Molkswagen Teetles, would that be legally okay? I would certainly hope not. Why then do people like Nick Simmons regularly copy the work of real artists, put their own name on it, and try to make a profit?

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The Deceit of Cached CafePress Keyword Artifacts

A couple of days ago, in our Memeingful blog, I wrote an article called — “Stealing Janna Sweenie” — that dealt with an un-named seller on an un-named commercial website that was using Janna’s good name and American Sign Language products to sell really ugly postcards and other knickknacks and trinkets. 
Today, I am ready to reveal the rest of the story and to publicly identify CafePress.com as the commercial website involved.

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Stealing Janna Sweenie

Do you own your own good name?  Or can someone take your name, your expertise in the field, and use it to sell t-shirts and postcards without your approval or knowledge?  My beloved wife Janna Sweenie and I write American Sign Language books together.  One of our bestsellers is “Hand Jive” — and that’s where this torrid story begins and ends.

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