Wednesday, 14 March 2012

Carol's News Round-Up: March/1

This is it, the first of my new posts covering interesting writing or book related items.

It was International Women's Day last week (8th March) and writer Linda Grant used her Twitter account to discuss the (continuing) need for feminism. She received a very large numbers of tweets and retweets in response, sharing their experiences of sexual discrimination over the years, that proved why the feminist movement was needed.

They are now available to read on a website called A Thousand Reasons. For anyone interested in social history, or wanting an insight into the lives of women in the 20th century, then read the responses- I thoroughly recommend it.

If you are in the UK and want to hear Linda Grant speaking about this, then listen to (14th March) Radio 4's Woman's Hour on the BBC 's Radio IPlayer. Linda's piece is 24 mins 30 seconds into the programme.

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The latest trend in the range of social websites is Pinterest. It enables you to pin a pictures from your computer or elsewhere on the web to a virtual pin board, so you can share an interest with other users.

And just to prove it is book related, you can even show book covers...

Now, it's a great idea, but this is one of those times when you really do need to read every term and condition carefully, rather than just clicking 'I accept'. Their copyright section is based in the USA, and they operate with reference to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act- so if you've not seen it then look here.

In Pinterest's indeminity section by signing up, you are agreeing to pay all costs if someone should take legal action for any infringement (despite there being a system in place for notifying of copyright infringement and removal)- as the other section clearly says you're agreeing not to infringe any third party rights, and you have the right to post the images etc.

So if you intend to use Pinterest, make sure the images are yours, or you have permission to use the images and give credit where it's due. I know most of you reading this already know that, but just in case there's anyone who doesn't...

Two quite hefty subjects to start with, but I promise I'll try for shorter items later this month...

A New Type of Blog Post Coming Today...

As those who know me well will tell you, I find useful or interesting news items on books, words or related publishing aspects, and relay them to my writer friends, who may also find them of interest or useful.

Since I joined Twitter I've found a lot more digital sources of opinion and information.

So as part of my rethink, on how I'm blogging and using other social media, I've decided to have a blog post specifically for writing/book related news/issues. Just in case you've missed the pieces on your own travels.

I will probably do this twice a month- dates to be decided- and give you the links to help.

I hope you'll enjoy this and find it useful, and perhaps contribute your thoughts in the comments section, or just say you've enjoyed-or not- reading it...