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Information wants to be Free
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Information Wants to Be Free
by Mike Banks Valentine
From the Web2001 Internet and Mobile conference and exposition at the Moscone convention center in San Francisco August 4-8, comes an interesting set of keynote speakers offered to attendees. Rather than major computer or software company CEO's, we have commentators on our culture speaking to a conference full of web developers and corporate strategists charged with developing web initiatives. One very important speaker was Dr. Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law professor, speaking on the threat represented by corporate interests to the creativity of the web. A creativity being regularly squashed and supressed by legal wrangling and debate. I attended Dr. Lessig's talk given to web developers at Web2001 9-7-01 and expected a lively debate when I visited his discussion forum at the Harvard Law web site. To visit and see posts over a year old is disappointing and worries me. I purchased his book, "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" at the show and highly recommend it to all small business webmasters. Dr. Lessig strongly advocates that creativity not be stifled by intellectual property owners asserting control over software and coding of web pages. This basically represents a viewpoint (and only in my own humble opinion, not Dr. Lessig's) in support of Open Source computing and freely available content for the web with appropriate copyright protections extending only a short time to allow the compensation of the creator. As a list owner that distributes content freely to web publishers and a columnist that publishes in multiple small business forums and portals around the web, I am disturbed by the control being sought by information "owners" over content. My list at http://yahoogroups.com/group/free-content distributes articles written by small business owners to publishers of small business ezines and web sites across the web. We have over 700 members, some representing very large distribution ezines and high-traffic web sites with potential exposure approaching 5 million readers. This approach allows exposure for the authors and results in sales of products or services from their web sites. The method of producing and distributing web content is an accepted means of small business exposure for the little guy. Sometimes we are infiltrated by publicists and distributors of PR for large content "owners" seeking wider distribution and access to a small business market segment. This inevitably leads to threats from publishers of "affiliate" articles for distribution. They are suddenly concerned that we are using their copyrighted articles and book excerpts for purposes other than those intended by the affiliate programs they are connected with. They then threaten the list and the affiliates posting their "articles" (read PR pieces) with copyright violation. This is bizarre, frustrating and worrisome. Is it free or not? Another talk at this conference by Stewart Brand, author of "How Buildings Learn, What Happens to Them After They Are Built" who is often quoted as saying "Information wants to be free". He would be a welcome contributor at the "Free-Content" list and would probably upset a lot of list participants torn between small business ecommerce, copyright issues and other business concerns about "ownership" and protecting that ownership. Authors who contribute to free content request that their articles only be used if their "Resource Box" is maintained and a link to their site is listed. It is doubtful that any would persue violators in court if that condition were not met, simply because most lack the financial resources to do so. No money, no law suit. Simple. Is it free or not? Many small business writers online contribute to a long list of article distribution/ announcement lists to gain the widest possible exposure, yet several major web sites insist on owning copyright to published articles. I regularly see articles posted to the Free Content list that are later run by large webzines that insist on copyright ownership when they run articles. They are sometimes picked up from Free-Content or one of the other article distribution lists. How do I know that? Because I know a couple of writers that have not submitted directly to those lists, yet they are published by them and lose copyright of their words! Is it free or not? I can't believe those large ezines would take it to court if the authors "violate" the copyright claimed by the large ezines when those articles are used without their knowledge! Get real guys. If we offer it free, you certainly can't claim to own copyright as you haven't paid for it and have used the work without notice to that author. It is free, I still own it and you can't claim to own it just because you published it without my knowledge. Too many publishers are trying to operate on an old paradigm when the writers have moved on. Free content is Free content and remains so. -------------------------------------------------------- Mike Valentine does Search Engine Placement for the Small Business http://website101.com/Optimization.html WebSite101 "Reading List" Weekly Netrepreneur Tip Sheet Weekly Ezine emphasizing small business on the Internet http://website101.com/arch/ --------------------------------------------------------
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July 16, 2001