Well, now, THIS is a first. UPDATED!

I just received an e-mail from a reporter who had written a report for the Ottawa Citizen almost two years ago now. I had reprinted her article in a longish blog post, and it seems that she now wants payment for my having posted the article.

I surely believed that I was within my rights under the Fair Use doctrine to quote the article in question for the purpose of offering commentary on it, but I certainly would not want to be placed in a position of seeming to steal the livelihood of anyone. I have therefore removed the quotations from the article in their entirety, amended the original post, and hereby offer my apologies for such a thoughtless oversight on my part.

The revised entry may be read here.

Well, it just gets better, don't it!

I did send a reply to the e-mail:

From: Terry Oglesby
Reply-To: Terry Oglesby
To: Sarah Ruttan
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 14:25:43 -0600
Subject: Re: copywritten material

Dear Ms. Ruttan:

Our apologies for reprinting your article from the Ottawa Citizen. Although we believed that its use was within our "fair use" rights, we do understand your concerns and have deleted your article from the original post.

I thought that would be the end of it.

I suppose this is what I get for thinking, eh? The reply to this?

From: Sarah Ruttan
To: terryoglesby@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 16:49:18 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: copywritten material

regardless, you owe me for having used it all this time. Again, the fee is $150. Any problems and you will be hearing from my lawyer, Talaal Bond. Thank you in advance for your prompt payment.

Sarah Ruttan

::sigh:: I suppose it takes all sorts, but as a very wise man once opined, you wonder why there has to be so many of that kind.

Needless to say, this promises to be pretty interesting.
posted by Terry at 2:21:00 PM