I am a writer, a journalist, and a publisher. I consider that all information given to me is for my use in those professions, unless the information contains a notice of copyright or a request for privacy.

I respect copyrights, but operate under the Doctrine of Fair Usage, interpreted liberally. Reciprocally, a major portion of my writings are available free on the World Wide Web to anyone who wants to read them. I've placed copyright notices on my writing to define what rights I'm maintaining and what uses I'm granting.

Persons conveying information to me do so at their own risk. Sources requesting secrecy are hereby given notice that I will maintain such secrecy at my sole discretion, according to my utilitarian considerations and personal ethics. If I make a promise to maintain secrecy or privacy on a particular piece of information, I will keep that promise except under duress, or unless in my judgment revealing that information will result in the net saving of lives or property. Don't expect me to keep your secrets under torture, or under threats to my family. I won't do it. I'm not a soldier pledged to any cause. But I am a human being with high ethical standards and will try like hell not to cause unwitting harm to others.

If material is sent to me in email, I consider that I have the right to forward it to anyone I choose, or to publish it in any form I choose, unless a specific copyright notice or request for privacy is made within the body of that email message. I take no responsibility for my unwittingly forwarding private email in which no specific request for privacy has been made, or copyrighted materials in which the copyright notice has been stripped from the material. If you "cc" or "bcc" me on an email, I reserve the right to reply as I see fit. If you don't want me to reply to someone, either don't include me in the email or conceal the email address of anyone you don't want to receive a reply. My email software includes in its design the one-click ability to reply to the sender or "reply all" or "forward." The inclusion of those features means the software designers contemplated that I and millions of others would want to use it and often enough I do. Accusing me of violating "netiquette" because I use features designed into my email software is snobbish, Pharisaical, and lame-brained. Do that to me and the stream of profanity you get will likely be the last email you will ever receive from me. I've never suffered fools gladly.

While we're on the subject of Netiquette, as far as I'm concerned it's up to you to reject or filter out unwanted HTML code or other attachments. My eMail is checked for viruses before I get it so I know it can be done. I often forward web pages and other assorted file-types to friends I think will be interested. If you don't want to hear from me, tell me and I'll remove you from my email address book.

Submission of literary materials for publication will be treated as copyrighted, so long as they are labelled submissions, and will not be published without permission from the copyright owner.

Publication embargo dates will be honored, if requested on the materials, and if I don't forget. Any disputes will be decided in my favor.

I don't consciously take credit for other people's creative work, and I expect that anyone consciously making use of my creative work will give me credit.

If these conditions are not acceptable to you, keep whatever it is to yourself!

J. Neil Schulman

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002 J. Neil Schulman. All rights reserved.