The Writing World

The publishing world is becoming more dangerous for authors.  I belong to a Yahoo Group named Romance Books R Us.  We have a website, blog, Twitter and Facebook Account. 

The owner of Romance Books R Us started this group in 2010, but recently an author named Adele Dubois was asked to cease and desist using the name Adele by Sony Cooperation.  Sony sent a letter to Google telling them to remove all articles on Blogger by Adele because her name infringed on the singer, Adele.  Sony threatened Google with a lawsuit, so they removed her articles.  Eventually, this ended up being solved because Adele was the real name of the author, Adele Dubois. 

Another author had a series using realtor, and had to use something else because Realtor is a trademark.  I've gotten off track here, but now I'm going to tie back into the first paragraph.  Because of the lawsuits, the owner of Romance Books R Us decided she'd better trademark the name Romance Books R Us.  After applying for the trademark, she received an email from the lawyers for Baby's "R" Us and Toy's "R" Us that she had 5 days to remove her site or face the consequences of a lawsuit because R Us was their trademark. 

At this time, I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, but I'll keep you informed.  This is something that concerns anyone who has a business, and writing is a business.  It's getting late, and I just hope I'm making sense. 

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a lovely week, and I'll see you next Sunday. 

Sandra K. Marshall
http://www.amazon.com/author/sandramarshall

How safe is the Internet Highway?

Hi Everyone,

Right off I want to apologize for posting my blog late this week. Those who visit here often know I usually post on Sunday’s, but for the last few months I’ve had computer problems due to viruses and an old computer. I finally got a new computer on Saturday, and it’s been a chore setting it up. For the most part it’s up and running even though there’s a lot more work to be done.

On to my question about the internet highway being safe. My answer is not very. The Internet is wonderful in bringing people together all around the world, but in all things there are some who are malicious enough to take advantage of anything good.

What can we do to protect ourselves? There are many security systems, firewalls, etc. that you can install on your computer to protect you from viruses, spy ware, Trojans, and worms. Like my husband says, there’s nothing out there that will catch everything so most of us have more than one security system installed but that’s not a guarantee that something won’t get through.

Every single one of us is in danger. We visit sites all the time and many of them we don’t know who operates them. How many of you are on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.? I’m on all of those, and I can tell you right now it’s dangerous. We want to network with others, so what can we do to protect ourselves?

One thing we can do is not click on links we don’t know where they come from. All right! All right! I clicked on a link that came from a friend, and I thought I was safe. The one thing you must remember is that friend may not know where the link came from. I clicked on a link at Facebook from my friend, but she got the site from someone on MySpace (probably a friend) and neither one of us knew where that link originated. I hope you’re getting the drift now.

None of your friends are going to intentionally give you a virus, but sometimes they don’t even know they have a bug. Some viruses can stay on your computer for a long time without being detected while infecting all of your friends if there anti-virus doesn’t catch the bugger.

Where can you pick up viruses? Just about anywhere. My husband is a ham operator, and he has gotten viruses off the sites he’s visited looking up information on ham radio equipment. Porn sites are notorious places to get viruses, so you guys stay away from them.

I have never heard of anyone getting a virus at Google, but the sites they direct you to for your research can be susceptible to viruses and you’re taking a risk when you go to them. I’m not telling you this to scare you away from all sites because then the information highway would be useless for all of us. Just err on the side of caution and realize that just one firewall and anti-virus checker is not enough.

See you on Sunday when my topic will be credit card fraud.

Hugs,
Sandy