January 18, 2006

RSSing --> It's all good, or is it?

The whole copyright debate is very confusing to me, as I think it is to anyone who throws original content into an open marketplace. Recently the debate's been spinning around Top Ten Sources, for which I proudly serve as a source at Halley's right hand. I was honored to be recognized alongside the others Halley chose.

My only issue would be if suddenly my content was being used in conjunction with a revenue generating doodad - like google ads or something similar - and I wasn't sharing in the revenue in a mutually-agreed-upon way.

Then we'd have a problem.

Top Ten Sources founder John Palfry suggests adding copyright statements to our feeds. I have no idea if this was what he had in mind, but this is what I added to mine (see red below). Tell me how it looks. I don't know if I can make it tiny. I don't really know what the hell this will do. Except I guess it states the mantra of this content owner/sharer pretty well:

(C) Jeneane Sessum / Copyright 2001-2006

Content may not be redistributed or repurposed in any manner that generates revenue for any entity other than the content owner -- for example through advertising, aggregation, redistribution, or any other means -- without the consent of the author.

UPDATE: Try number 2 in consideration of Denise's take:

Bare Statement: You can link to it; you can quote it; you can read it any way it comes to you. But if you're gaining revenue from it, I better be sharing in the revenue in a way that I've agreed to.


P.S., edit: never mind -- the little Blogger RSS footer doesn't seem to work--> the bare statement notice isn't showing up. grrr.

Must Reads:

Shelley
Om
DENISE
Locke
Dave
John
Adam