In 1989 Barbara Cartland was the first person ever to appear twice on the famous television show ‘This is your Life’ Barbara Cartland has championed many causes and taken part in a variety of projects. She has been a County Councillor for nine years, drawn attention to the condition of Housing and Homes for the elderly and even had the law changed in order that Romany children should go to school. This was one of the most unpopular causes she had ever attempted but the provision of camps for Romany gypsies is down to Barbara Cartland. She helped set up fourteen county council camps in Hertfordshire and other counties followed suit. There is even a camp named after her – Barbaraville!

You might be tempted into thinking that Barbara Cartland lived in a fantasy pink world of imagination if it were not for the fact that she has achieved many great things. Her interests have been extensive and she has even written countless books and articles about health and encouraged the use of alternative medicine. In fact, Barbara Cartland answered 40,000 letters a year, of which, 30,000 were about health. She frequently wrote journals and reports about health products which was unpaid work. This is a lady who was very much ‘in touch’ with the modern world.

Barbara Cartland was awarded for Achievement by Prime Minister Chirac of France the honour bestowed upon her by the City of Paris in a country where over thirty million copies her books had been sold. Since this time the figure has risen to over sixty million.

Barbara Cartland always had a soft spot for Birmingham and visited it regularly for appearances on Pebble Mill and Birmingham radio stations. She gave many interviews to Birmingham newspapers and in particular the ‘Birmingham Post’ and she always said she was delighted to have been born in a great city and proud of everything that Birmingham had achieved.

Barbara Cartland touched so many lives. Our thanks go to Ian McCorquodale for providing us with his mothers final farewell – “How I want to be Remembered”, a document detailing her family history and an insight into her ninety six years which have been saddened by family tragedy and ecstatically happy through her love of her family.

Barbara acknowledges that she has been shown great kindness and also a certain amount of teasing and ridicule by the Press. However, according to her publishers she has produced 724 books, sold over a billion copies and entered the Guinness Book of Records as the best selling author in the World. Published in every country this amazing lady can afford to rise above those who might make fun of her. This marvellous woman is beyond ridicule and has no need to prove anything to anyone. The facts speak for themselves. Barbara Cartland is the most successful writer of romantic fiction of all time. And – she was born in Birmingham!

Barbara Cartland was an amazingly prolific author. When her books were selling so well in the late 1970’s, her American and English publishers came to her and asked for more Barbara Cartlands to satisfy the demanding audience.

She then doubled her output from 10 books a year to 20 books a year, and this at the age of 77! She kept this up, extraordinarily for 20 years, between the ages of 77 and 97. This is something that has never been achieved before by any author.

Eventually, even her publishers could not cope with her output and when she died in 2000 she left a legacy of 160 unpublished manuscripts which are now being published by her son, Ian, on the internet and by mail order, under the banner of the Barbara Cartland Pink Collection.

Will there ever again be a writer with such genius and prolific writing skills?

www.birminghamuk.com/barbaracartland.htm

About the Author

From the Community website of the West Midlands. Everyone Welcome.

I’ve always been of the opinion that competition is a good thing. It encourages all of us to be better and make better products. While it might be true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, copying someone else’s work is simply wrong.

We recently came across a competitor using our sales copy. The competitor was using a web graph showing the traffic on one of our sites, along with our sales copy to promote their competing application. Digging a little further, I realized that their competing application was, in both form and function, identical to our application. The competing program contained identical screenshots, custom program icons and our help documentation. While the code of the program was, in fact, different, it was clear that our copyright had been violated.

We are not the first company to have our copyright violated and once the initial emotional reaction passed, we took action.

Dealing With Copyright or Trademark Violations:

Who, What and Where
Before reacting, it is important to do homework and research the alleged content violator. Arm yourself with information. Determining the who, what and where will guide you in taking the appropriate steps.

Determine WHO is violating your copyright
Research the website: do a Whois lookup to determine the site’s owner. The domain owner can be found by entering the domain into http://www.whois.com and clicking on the link that says “Whois Lookup”. If the copyright on software has been violated, check the PAD file for the author and release date.

Determine WHERE the website hosting is located
Determine where the website is hosted. Web hosts located in progressive countries will be more cooperative in addressing copyright violations. After determining the webhost’s location, check the host’s Terms of Service (TOS) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) to determine the level of cooperation you will likely receive. More often than not, a physical address and detailed information on how to report an abuse claim will be found in the webhost’s terms of service.

Determine exactly WHAT violations have occurred.
When determining if a copyright violation has occurred, it is important to go back to the question of what constitutes a copyright violation.

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship.” This work can be literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, or similar intellectual works. Copyright protection is available to both published and unpublished works. It is illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright. It is important to note that ideas can not be copywritten, and while it may be morally and ethically questionable, cloning a software application is not a copyright violation, yet copying a helpfile is a copyright violation.

Copyright protection exists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. Evaluate the violator’s work to determine if text, graphics or any of the program or website’s artistic qualities are the same as your creative works. Print hard copies of any documents and save electronic versions of web pages and executables. Capture screenshots of offenses, save documentation or the Help file that contains any duplications of text. Enter the URL of the offending website into http://www.archive.org to see the website’s history and determine a timeline during which violations occurred. Look and feel can be subjective, try to focus on obvious or flagrant violations. Copied text or Help files is obvious when filing a complaint with web hosts or other third parties.

What is Next?
If you feel your copyright has, in fact, been violated there are a number of steps that you can take. Contacting third party service providers is a good starting point. Make a list of the providers with whom you can contact to report the violations.

1. Hosting
2. Online Ordering
3. If Software, Download Sites
4. Associations or Organizations

Aside from service providers, consider using existing relationships with parties who have a mutual interest or relationship with the other party. Often, knowing key people can result in a rapid response and increased dialogue with the purported offender.

Send simultaneous emails to each of the parties identified. Include details of the violation; using a PDF that displays screen captures or copies of text violations with website pointers is helpful. In the email, explain the action you wish to occur. If you want the web host to remove the website, say so. Also, ask that they keep you apprised of the situation.

In most cases you will receive responses from webhosts or registration services that require you to provide additional details so that the infringement can be investigated. It may seem obvious to the copyright holder, but the web hosts typically have a contractual agreement with their clients and are legally obligated to research any infringements before removing hosting or registration services.

Send a Cease and Desist letter and an email detailing that a copyright has been violated, include a reasonable deadline by which the offending copy or application should be removed. It is not necessary to provide the offender the details of the violation, as it is likely they are already aware of the offenses that have occurred. These actions will generally open a dialogue with the offender. If the offender ignores requests to remove the material that infringes on your copyright, pursue action with third party services. This will likely get the offender’s attention.

Artists, developers, and writers all work hard to create unique material and copyrights should be respected by all.

About the Author

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.