If you post it, they will steal it! It's that simple.

I recently joined FaceBook. Again, it is all about my book and the networking necessary to promote it. I have actually pretty much ignored it, since I joined, but now my family is sending me “friend” links so I went back on it, for the second time.

Then, the big hype that FaceBook is going to steal your content.

PEOPLE: If you post it, they will steal it. What makes anyone on earth think that there is any way to keep people from stealing your work, your words, or your art?

I did national art shows for years and I once saw an artist, nearly break his neck, jumping in between his precious artwork and a woman with an Instamatic camera. I talked to him later and he was very concerned that someone was going to steal his work and make prints. I have news for him, no way was an Instamatic camera of high enough quality to make saleable art prints. I freely would pose by my paintings or give permission for photos of them to anyone who did not have a $6,000 camera on a tripod. Then, I want my cut.

People who grab a picture want them because they admire the work and they wish they could do it themselves. I have heard of someone who was snagging pictures of polymer fairies, off eBay, and making needlepoint patterns to sell. That was wrong. But, it’s hard to stop that. You could obscure your artwork by putting your name across it but that is so distracting. They are going to steal it. Take my word for it.

Having my artwork visible and open for theft on my website is something I quit worrying about, when I discovered the print screen button on my keyboard. This works even on sites that have their graphics protected. Not that I would use it, mind you, but I have checked it out and it works. So, get over it.

Nothing is sacred. Nothing is protected. The very first time I went to find out the cost of a cell phone, the person in front of me refused to give her Social Security number to the man selling the cell phones. She walked away without a phone and we had a good chuckle over her thought that he could not have her number. He even told me how he could have her number right now, if he wanted.

My mother cuts up all of her address labels, of course mom has a thing with cutting up paper, but she is ensuring that no one gets her address. “Have you ever looked in the phone book, Mom?” Why would anyone dig through your garbage, when they can just look in the phone book?

Beside my young adult novel, I have a mystery that I would like to polish up and put out there. I started and nearly completed it a long time ago. When I found out that you should not put anything on the internet, giving away first rights, when you are going to be submitting it, I thought of my Mystery and the fact that I had entered it on an on-line book site once, long ago. I could not find it anywhere and I thought,” that’s good.” I will tell them it is no longer out there.

But, you know what; there is never a time when something you have posted is ‘no longer out there.’ Google recently had their tenth anniversary and so, to honor it, they posted all the stuff you could access when they were first in business. Yep, the first first chapter of my mystery was right there- ten years later, an eon in the life of the internet.