Bar talk.  Are you familiar with the term?  It's when you're sitting at a bar and there is some guy sitting there who is obviously the world's smartest man!  No matter what you're talking about, he's the expert!

I've always felt the there was something about real estate that brought this out in people, even when they weren't sitting at a bar with a few drinks in them.  In the past, I've teased that ALL men have a gene in their DNA that makes them an expert when it comes to real estate.  I've been involved in real estate since 1984 and I'm the one guy who apparently doesn't prosess this gene!

Well, Blogging is another one of these instances where people get to spout off their opinions and claim to be an expert in one subject or the other.  The particularly bad thing about blogging is that if you call yourself an expert long enough and you gain a certain amount of notoriety in a community, others will start to view you as an expert.

I just noticed this today while reading a blog about a lady who had her content swiped by another blogger.  In this post she referenced a post by another AR member on copyright.  She referred to her as AR's "Queen" on the topic.

Well, first of all, I'm not using particular names because I don't want to stir up another battle royal as I did the last time I wrote on copyright.  If you can read between the lines and guess who I'm talking about, then that's cool.  I'm not attempting to slam anybody here, I just want to make a point.

That is, that just because somebody writes with a tone of authority, doesn't make that person a true expert!  Especially in a topic as open to interpretation as copyright law!

If you read the comments on my post about the "Fair Use Doctrine" and "Fair Use Doctrine II", you will see that quite a few people disagreed with me.  In particular AR's resident "Queen" on the subject thought I was full of crap!  From some of the other comments you will see that, at least her on AR, that people place a far greater amount of faith in her opinions when it comes to copyright than they did on mine.  This is cool, I'm a big boy and can take it.

The problem with this is that she was wrong!  At least according to a world renown authority on the topic.  Actually, he didn't come right out and say that she was wrong, instead in an email to me, he linked to an example where he personally did the exact same thing that I had done.  

He also pointed out that even though he has an extensive amount of experience in the field, including having worked for the US Government as copyright counsel to the US House of Representatives and as the policy planning adviser to the register of copyrights that various courts throughout the world didn't always agree with him.

Anyway, again, my point here isn't to slam anyone.  It's to make sure that you take what you read here with a grain of salt.  While you can indeed learn a great deal from reading the various posts, use it as a jumping off point.  Do your own homework.  In this particular case, I read the actual statutes and when I wanted affirmation that my interpretation was correct, I emailed this guy.  It's amazing that all I had to do was ask and he was kind enough to have exchanged several emails on the topic.  I am now comfortable that I was indeed correct in my interpretation of the law.  If some of the folks here on AR don't agree with me, at least " Let me buy you a drink!"

R.B. "Bob" Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc. 

Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company.  To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com