The Eleventh Commandment

The Great Spider Goddess looked down from the starred heights which She inhabits and into the Web of Her Creation and wept, yeah, verily, She wept for the artists and writers and programmers, for the few gifted beings to whom She gave her greatest of all presents : An Original Thought. She sobbed as though her Great Arachnid Heart would shatter for the sad fate to which this Great Gift of Hers, the World Wide Web, had succumbed...

And in Her Crazed Grief, the Holy Arthropod wove a Magical Tablet of Electrons, a Great Message to Her People, so that Her Beloved Creators should be safe from depredations and plagiarism, so that Her Artists, Programmers and Writers may continue to freely share their Gifts with the World without fear of Insult or Robbery.

And Pixelita, Princess of Pixels, known to thee as Moyra, the Elective Red Head Wunderkind, who glories in the Love and Sharing of the Great Spider Goddess, hath channeled the intent of the Divine Weaver's Commandments for thee:

+Thou shalt not plagiarize others' work by claiming it as entirely thy own, even if thou adaptest it to thy own needs or recreatest it.

+Thou shalt not scan, beg, borrow or steal artwork, writing, scripts or even HTML codes, no matter what the source is, unless thou art prepared to wrangle with the License Goddess and Her wrathful Legal Acolytes.

+If thou knowest not the source of the artwork, writings or scripts thou usest, and canst not find it through the Sacred Search Engines, thou shalt place an EVIDENT and VISIBLE plea for help in finding the creator of that which thou usest without permission.

+ Thou shalt not use *anything* on thy web sites which was brought into being by someone else without receiving expressed, written permission from its creator and paying the necessary license fee, the groveling, overly charming letter fee or the logo and link back fee (on the same page thou usest the work!). Thinketh not that thou canst just state "copyright by" and be done with the honoring, for She of the Hallowed Spinnerets reminds thee that "copyright" means thou canst NOT use it without license and permission.

+ Thou shalt educate thy people as to the Eleventh Commandment, so that thou mayest rise high upon thy digital mountain and receive the special blessing of the Scoop of Integrity [http://www.thescoop.net/] and the Appreciation of all the polite subjects of The Great Spider Goddess. The Divine Weaver hath commanded her servant to create this little plaque below for thee, oh most excellent, ethical and worthy webster, that thou mayest post it on thy pages and inform the world, so that the Great Spider's sadness may be alleviated, and Her Web be made a safe and wondrous place for creators again!

I beg thee, if thou usest this graphic in the great Arachnid Cause of the 11th Commandment, write to Pixelita [[artiste (at) home.mysticpc.com]] and give her thy page's name and address, so that she may place thee on the Honor Roll of the Lovely Beings who respect and honor the Artists, Writers and Creators of this World. And prithee, link the plaque back to:

[http://moyra.com/jewels/html/eleventh.html]