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The Ins and Outs of Free Writing Contests (free writing contests) Free writing contests are available by the thousands. They are virtually a dime a dozen on the Internet. No matter what your niche is in the writing community there is a free writing contests out there for you. How do you know which ones to enter and which ones are legitimate? That?s simple. You do what you do best-- research. While providing the story for the free writing contest will probably be the easy part, researching the thousands of available contests will be a daunting task. If this is un-chartered water for you, you have the start at the beginning. Finding what free writing contests are available. Grab a notebook or start a word document and list the contests that are available. Beside each contest name you will want to put what kind of writing they are looking for and when it needs to be done by. By doing this first you will be able to eliminate any that do not coincide with your writing niche or with your schedule. Now the free writing contest research begins. Finding out if a contest is worthwhile and legitimate is comparable to running a background check on a person. First check the contest website. Do they have all contact information available? Do they tell you what company is hosting the contest? If they are not, you will have likely found warning number one that it is a scam. So scratch those off your list or at least move them to the bottom until you can find out more information on them. Start asking around to colleagues and writers groups. Search the writing forums and the Internet scam sites. The Better Business Bureau is also a good place to look. Once you narrowed the free writing contests down to the legitimate ones, read the contest rules and regulations. Some contests require you signing over all rights to a story even if you don?t win. Are you willing to do this? Giving up rights to you writing is a lot easier to do when you are getting something in return. After you enter there is no going back, so make sure this is what you want to do. The final thing you need to look for is if the contest is just a cover up to get you to buy services or products. This does not necessarily mean they are a scam or don?t actually award winners. It simply means that they will try to entice you to use their critiquing services or offer you a book at a reduced fee that your work will be published in. Being published sounds like a great deal but is it a book that carries prestige that people are going to see? Many authors think that writing contests will launch their career into a successful endeavor. This is not the case, especially for free writing contests. Even winning the grand prize of a smaller known contest is not going to affect your literary journey. Even though they may not springboard your career, there are good reasons to join writing contests. You will get unbiased opinions and valuable feedback from the judges. If you make it into the higher rounds, editors could also see your writing. Ultimately whether you enter a free writing contest the choice is yours. Just ask you self if the time spent writing and researching the piece you choose to enter is worth writing for free in most cases. The critique and feedback may be the most worthwhile thing you receive from the contest. But then again the judges opinions are a dime a dozen just like the contests.

Steps on Reinventing yourself to Land a Better Job Having a decent job can greatly improve the quality of your life. You probably spend a fair amount of time at work. With that in mind, you do not want to be miserable when you are at work. If you want a better job, make yourself more attractive to employers. This task may be easier than you think. Start making some simple changes and watch the job offers begin to appear. The number one way to reinvent yourself in order to land a better job is to reform your attitude. Even if you are working at a nightmare of a job at the moment, you need to fight to stay positive. That negativity can be seen a mile away. You may not realize it but your face expression, posture and quality of work give off your frustration. This attitude is the first thing that has to go. Simple ways to change the way you feel about your current job include being on time and in uniform or proper dress code. These are two easy steps that will give you more pride about yourself. If you are out of dress code and late, you are not just making statement about the job. You are making a statement about yourself. Change these aspects of your working environment and you will be on your way to increasing positive energy. Take some classes. Whether you have a degree or not, brushing up on skills is always a good idea. No matter what your schedule is like, you can find time for a class or two. Use the Internet and take online classes if time is a major issue. Work at your own pace and pick up new skills. A degree or a couple of classes will make you more attractive to employers. Move away. If you are tired of dust collecting on your Communications degree while you wait tables, move to a place where your degree is more marketable. Find an area where the job market is fertile. When the economy goes south, certain job types are completely eliminated. If you are eager to find a better job you may have to go somewhere else to do it. Apply for higher positions in the company that you currently work for at the moment. Even if you are not really that thrilled about the current company you work for, while you are there you should make the best of it. Get as much experience as you can so that you will have a nice extensive work history to refer to when you are looking for a new job. If you want a better job, do some networking. Take advantage of the people that you know that have better jobs. Surround yourself with people that are working at jobs that they enjoy or are successful at. This is a great way to pave the way for yourself to get a better job. Figure out what type of job you want before you start looking. Narrow down the search and target the positions that fall in line with the jobs that you are most interested in. If you a constantly saying that you want a better job but don?t have any idea what the better job is, you are not going to be very successful in you search. Have a job in mind before you start your search. Join networking sites. These sites can be used for networking for jobs among other things. Be sure that you take the professional route when you put up your page. Let employers know that you are serious about finding a job. Do not post pictures of yourself at parties or in questionable positions.

Music copyright infringement How Does Music Copyright Infringement Affect Me? Music copyright infringement happens all around us every day, by both well meaning people downloading music from their favorite social networking site to the guy who?s reselling MP3s. To be certain, most people who commit music copyright infringement don?t realize what?s going on, and are in turn doing something very illegal and prosecutable in the United States. Copyright Infringement, as defined by Wikipedia.org states: ?Copyright infringement (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material that is protected by intellectual property rights law particularly the copyright in a manner that violates one of the original copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. The slang term bootleg (derived from the use of the shank of a boot for the purposes of smuggling) is often used to describe illicitly copied material.? We?ve all heard of ?bootleg? recordings ? usually audio recordings taken from concerts and sold on home made cassettes or CDs and distributed (sometimes out of the trunk of a car) to anyone that will buy. Bootleg recordings have changed, however, as music copyright infringement has branched into video recordings. Music copyright infringement has exploded with the advent of the internet, and now people from all over the world are sharing every type of imaginable file ? from eBooks to audio to music ? and small label artists began feeling the pinch years ago. However, many new and older artists are beginning to see the beauty of the internet, and are offering their music for sale track-by-track on iTunes and other MP3 sales websites, as well as through their own band websites and MySpace pages. The internet has exploded in the possibilities it?s given up and coming musicians to become visible, while at the same time drastically increasing the number of music copyright infringement cases ? some of which were against innocent people who just weren?t informed. Music copyright infringement cases have helped to create organizations that protect the fair use of an item, such as a song. Organizations such as CreativeCommons.com and the Electronic Frontier Foundation help individuals to know their rights under copyright acts. While there are organizations that help you understand your rights as a purchaser of copyright use, there are organizations that want to limit the ways in which you use the products you buy. It is rumored, for example, that record distribution and production companies want to limit the ways in which you use the music you buy ? they don?t want you to put it on your computer or make a Mix Tape or CD from it ? for fear of ?sharing.? It seems to me, however, when music publishers and distribution companies limit uses like this, they?re opening up a tidal wave of music copyright infringement cases. By limiting the use of purchased material, the companies are alienating their client base and pushing all their sales away from physical products and toward electronic ones ? which are much harder to control. A way in which these companies tried to limit the uses was by creating a DRM program, which severely limited the where a CD could be played (on one computer, for instance). And, in one drastic measure, Sony placed a DRM program on all their CDs in the Winter of 2005, and severely crippled several networks when their ?program? was actually malware that seriously crippled network security. As you can see, music copyright infringement is something that is currently being fought between end users and music production and distribution companies. In this new century, we must find a way to retain copyright, and allow the customers to use the products they buy in a meaningful way, or otherwise the market will shift and the industry as we know it will be abandoned.