Is It Just Me?

I know I'm not exactly a spring chicken - err rooster, but I think I am relatively open minded. Perhaps I'd draw the line at being hip. I mean that would be ok if you thought I was hip, but I'm not really trying to fool anyone here.

As I read other blogs, something I see, has sort of hung in the back of my mind... In the little space where annoying things seem to go and set up shop and just hang out till you evict them or something.

Understand, I'm not trying to be judgmental. That is NOT my reason for this post and I certainly am not going to point fingers. Still, something is gnawing at me and I am starting to wonder if it is just me.

I see from time to time other bloggers who will post another's poem in its entirety. The interesting thing is, people don't seem very often to post some other blogger poet's work, though I have seen it done on very rare occasion. What I do see is people posting the complete text of the works of very established poets. Often deceased, but not always.

Myself, I would never think of posting another bloggers poem without first getting permission. And that seems to be a prevailing view of almost everyone else out there. Am I being totally old fashioned by applying that same standard to say the works of Robert Frost or Sharon Olds? I know some works are in the public domain. But for those that aren't, if I am going to reference them in a post, I may use a line or two or a stanza to illustrate a point, or often link the entire poem from somewhere else on the internet. But without permission of the poet or copyright holder, I would not feel right reposting it in my blog.

Someone is probably going to say, "Michael, get with the times." File sharing is rampant, etc, but as artists, as poets, as writers, should not we respect the work of others to the same degree we would expect them to treat our work?

What say you?

poetry copyright
ethics