Steals, This Book

I took this photo from their Facebook page for my own use. I hope they appreciate the irony.

Someone I don't know took my post about Rumah Api (and the photos that went along with it) and published it in their zine without my permission. It was a pretty personal post, which is part of the reason why having it reprinted without my consent is so irritating.

I don't know who's behind this, but I've heard that this zine is part of a benefit for Rumah Api. That's all well and good, and I guess I should be flattered that whoever is doing this liked my writing enough to reprint it. It's just weird to me that they didn't think to reach out to me.

This isn't the first time my work has been reprinted in a local zine; Darahhead Metalzine used my write up about KL Thrashed in one of their issues. The difference is: 1) The editor of that zine translated the entire post into Bahasa Melayu, and also added his own asides (so I'm not even sure how much the printed version is really even my work); and 2) HE ASKED FOR PERMISSION TO USE MY WORK AND I GAVE IT.

It's pretty weird that the article about how much I hate Malaysia and everyone here ended up being such a hit in Malaysia (Rumah Api only comes up about halfway). Doubling down on the irony: The entire first part of the piece is about how I constantly feel like I'm getting taken advantage of in this country. Having my work copied and pasted into some rando's stupid zine doesn't exactly change that; I'll assume that the irony was lost on them. All I know is I look forward to meeting the responsible parties and having a civilized conversation.

UPDATE: A couple people involved in the zine reached out to me to apologize for not getting my permission (but only after I made kind of a stink about it on Facebook). According to them, somehow during the process of taking other people's content and using it in their little thing, they "forgot" to ask for permission.

...sure.