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Terms of Use

Please read below for accepted and permitted uses. This site provides retirement income for a married senior citizen couple. If our poems are sent or posted in violation of the Terms of Use below, then our site loses value and our retirement income decreases.

All of our poems are protected by paid, registered, federal copyright, and most of our poems have been published in a copyrighted book, titled Sentimental Journey, available at Amazon.com and other online bookstores.

We are having problems with copyright violations. We are following up on violations, and we have taken appropriate action on violations of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act with regard to our site, and we will continue to do so.

Reproduction or use of any of our poems for PERMITTED uses
must show, beneath each poem,
both the author’s name and the Web site address, www.poemsource.com.

PERMITTED:

  • Free personal, noncommercial use of our poems on paper cards, or printed on sheets of paper (framed or not), given hand to hand or postal mailed or shipped to relatives, friends and associates. Both the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. It can be small print, just so it’s readable. 
  • Free personal use of our poems on e-cards, sent to ONE person at a time (NOT to a group of people), such as those available at Hallmark.com and other e-card sites. Both the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. It can be small print, just so it’s readable. 
  • Free use of poems for reading aloud at school programs and nonprofit events. The poems may be read aloud with no attribution, but if they are printed in the paper program or other paper document, the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. Please do NOT use our poems in e-mailed documents of any kind, including programs. 
  • Free use of poems from the Patriotic Poems page, Patriotic Poetry page or Veterans' Day page for nonprofit patriotic and military events. The poems may be read aloud with no attribution, but if they are printed, the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. It can be small print, just so it’s readable. Please do NOT use our poems in e-mailed documents of any kind, including newsletters and other publications. 
  • Free personal use of poems for printing on paper wedding and other kinds of paper invitations (for example, baby showers) and paper wedding and other paper programs that will NOT BE SOLD or used to generate income for a commercial enterprise, activity, event or publication. Both the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. It can be small print, just so it’s readable. Please do NOT use our poems in e-mailed documents of any kind, including invitations.
  • Free use of poems in nonprofit paper newsletters and other nonprofit paper publications, provided that no more than ONE poem is published per issue. Both the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. It can be small print, just so it’s readable. Please do NOT use our poems in e-mailed documents of any kind, including newsletters and other publications.
  • Free use of poems for sending paper greeting cards to business clients (such as Christmas cards and thank you cards), provided the cards ARE NOT SOLD and provided that no more than ONE poem is used on the card or other printed, paper communication. Both the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. It can be small print, just so it’s readable. 
  • Free use of Christian poems in church bulletins or newsletters, provided that no more than ONE poem is published per issue. Both the author’s name and the Web site address must appear beneath each poem. It can be small print, just so it’s readable.

PERMISSION REQUIRED

WEB SITES, BLOGS, SOCIAL MEDIA SITES, OTHER SITES: On rare occasions we allow the posting of ONE of our poems at a Web site or blog or social media site or other site. Contact us to request permission through our Contact Form. If we grant permission, we require the author's name after the poem and a live, clickable link to our site. We will be happy to provide the HTML code so that the link to our site opens in a new window, so you don't lose your visitor.

Here is the reason we must limit it to just ONE poem per blog or site. We are senior citizens who have worked very hard for years to develop our site, because it provides us with some retirement income. If we allowed others to publish unlimited amounts of our work, our site would be worthless to us. Some people have built a great deal of their site or blog with our work, and we found it necessary to take legal action to protect our site and our income.

The reason we permit others to publish ONE of our poems at their site or blog is to drive more traffic to our site, which increases our income. If you want your visitors to see other poems of ours, please give them a link to our site, rather than posting more than one of my poems at your site.

For uses not covered above nor prohibited below,
please contact us for permission through our Contact Form.

PROHIBITED:

  • Electronic delivery of any kind (except e-cards, to no more than ONE person at a time, NOT to groups of people, with the author’s name and Web site address beneath each poem), including, but not limited to e-mail, texting, messaging, etc. Please, do not send our poems by e-mail, texting or instant messaging. We have good reasons for this restriction, and they are explained further down the page. 
  • Business or commercial uses of any kind where the poems are sold or used to generate income for a commercial enterprise, activity, event or publication, including Web and other electronic publications.


COMMERCIAL LICENSING: At this time, we are not doing commercial licensing agreements for the use of our poems (except for occasional arrangements with very large corporations) because we tried it a number of times and it just didn't work for us.

Again, please do not send our poems to people by e-mail or text them or send them in an instant message or other electronic delivery except for e-cards as described above. If you want a person, or group of people (as in a group e-mail) to see our poems, please send them to our site to view the poems, rather than printing the poems in the e-mail.

The reason we don't give permission for e-mailing or texting our poems is that it is much too easy to send our poems to dozens of people at once, each of whom then sends the poems to dozens more, and in the process, some people (people you don't even know--people known to people you know, but not to you) delete Joanna's name or Karl's name as author and delete the Web site address, using the poems as their own, as if they wrote them. We have to protect our copyrights, or our site will become worthless and our income will stop. We hope you understand.

We hope you enjoy the poems at poemsource.com and that they can help deepen your relationships with the people who are important to you.

Thank you for visiting our site!

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