More Internet Caution

As is my wont (I'm feeling a bit archaic this morning), I was wasting more of my valuable time doing random Google searches yesterday and came across something surprising. I found several "feed" sites that, as near as I can tell, do nothing but scour the Internet for various kinds of articles and information.

I was particularly interested to find that some site had helped themselves to one of my articles which is posted on this blog, specifically, my interview with Elissa Malcohn. I will never know who it was, as the link that I clicked gave me one of those "site aint here no more" pages, nor will I ever know if I was properly credited for the piece that they apparently reprinted without my permission. The portion that I saw contained the first couple of paragraphs of my article, and it even had the word count posted next to the title. It was not linked from this blog in any way ... from what I could tell, they simply copied it (probably from my atom or feedburner feeds) and posted it elsewhere.

It got me thinking along two different lines. One, I am serious about protecting my copyrighted material. That I offer it on this (or any other) blog for free does not in any way mean that the material is offered free to anyone on the Internet. My "payment," if you will, is that people read the material on MY blog, whether they come here directly, or via a link on someone else's site. The value of an excellent article such as my interview with Ms. Malcohn (excellent because she is a fascinating person, not due to any particular talent on my part) is that it inspires people to read more of the things that I have written here, perhaps even bookmark or subscribe to my blog. This helps me in that it builds a readership that, ultimately, may be inclined to purchase the books that I will someday publish. I have never made it any great secret that this blog largely concerns myself, and exists to promote my writing. To that end, I have spared (to the best of my ability) my potential blog readers the annoying advertisements and "ad sense" nonsense that usually renders a blog unpleasant to read. That said, I find myself quite annoyed at the prospect of people making free use of my copyrighted material without first securing proper permission to do so, and/or presenting my material (or substantial portions thereof) in some other forum, rather than directing their readers via a link back to this blog, and the article in question. But let me be clear on one thing, I do not mind in the least when people DO link to an article on my blog ... I consider it quite a compliment. I am only referring to those scoundrels who copy material from someone else's blog or website, and then present it on their own as if the material is either their own original work, or, even with proper author attribution, that it is in some way exclusive to their domain.

The other thing that struck me was just how long things remain on the Internet, even after you thought you had deleted them. I think that a lot of us (myself included) feel like the Internet is just a great big hard drive that we can store things on, and easily delete. Not so. Search engines and Internet archiving services store pages and even entire websites for God knows how long, and the information is readily available to anyone with the time, and tenacity, to dig it up. I should think people would want to be a little more careful what they chose to present in this brave new digital world. What you say or do now could come back to bite you in the ass years down the road. I'm thinking of the notorious "Star Wars Kid" video that was popular on "You Tube," or one of its clones. We can debate all day about whether or not the kid suffered any damage from that mildly embarrassing video, or who is responsible if he did. What we can be certain of is that, should the kid ever decide to run for public office, you can bet we'll see it again. And again. And again. I'm generally against government regulation, but I have a feeling that's exactly where the Internet is headed. As it stands, there's a sort of "wild west" vibe to the whole thing, and not enough people with shiny silver stars on their chests to go around.