Just to share an honest opinion/reaction on other recent events (aka The Raani York Saga Continues)

Reblogged from The Reading Perusals of Rose Summers:

So, I got a "threatening" (I use that in quotes because I didn't take it as such, but it's still disconcerting when you have to deal with this kind of thing as a blogger) email today from someone who chose to use a friendsmail@gmail.com account.  The message was as follows:

 

"If I were you, I'd remove the Dragonbride cover pic.  It is a violation of the copyright laws."

 

This was sent to my blog's email address.  And it's funny that for the seven years I've been blogging and featuring images associated with my critical reviews of media, that this is from someone who doesn't choose to identify themselves, who doesn't seem to have a concept of what "fair use" is under U.S. copyright law, and who seems to want to try to intimidate me from sharing an honest opinion.

 

In the interest of being honest, if for some reason York's team did not want me to use the cover image of "Dragonbride" on my blog, I would honor it and not give it a second thought.  But this?  This is cheap, puerile, and unprofessional.  I don't know who sent the message (whether it was York, her team, or even someone who's a third party - it might've been someone from STGRB for all I know.  I don't really care who it was at this point), but I figure it's better for me to just publicly address it rather than risk sending a message back to that person and violating my privacy or making them hang some thread over my head if I were to address them in private (though I'd probably still be cordial and accomodating even if I were addressing it in private). 

 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. If I have to go to court, I'll do so, but I think it might just be better to honor the request even if it is a craptastic thing for someone to send.  And it wasn't even a request.  It was a threat.

 

I do not tolerate bullying and I will not be bullied into silence by anyone who thinks they can belittle me for actually buying a book, reviewing it, and spreading the word on the work, even if it's a book that's no longer in print or available for sale.  So, I'm putting this out there, I'll let it speak for itself, and I'll decide what to do in the next few hours.

 

And then I'm going to go back to reading, preferably from authors who actually appreciate the time I take to openly analyze/critique/review their work.  Even if it may not be a popular opinion or a positive one.