You Don’t Own ANY Conversation
Apr 13 2008 
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I’m actually going to keep this post simple.
You don’t really own anything you put on the web, but there are various things like Creative Common licenses and what not to make you feel as if you do.
Get Real!
This is the internet and quite frankly, EVERYTHING is for the taking, whether you wish it to be or not. With that being said, you don’t own your audience, so you don’t own the comments, so you don’t own the conversation.
If I started talking to Louis Gray about something Sarah Perez said to me, even though she started the conversation, I’m more than free to pick it up and take it all the way to a friend in India if I want. I’m in no way, shape, or form, obligated to bring any of the continuations of the conversation back to Sarah Perez and she’s not obligated to demand them FROM me. Though, she’s more than welcome to ask.
If Shyftr wants to display my content in full front to their users, as long as I’m getting my credit, I don’t see what the problem is. You’re going to miss things! You won’t catch every comment. There’ll be comments about conversations that you started months ago and you may or may not see them! SO THE HELL WHAT?! At least you can sign up for Shyftr to get them, even if it is somewhat wrong.
It’s all in the eye of the beholder at the end of the day. Personally, Shyftr is marketing me and have provided me with another way to reach an audience that I may not have reached otherwise. I don’t think they’re stealing my content at all.
Think About It Like This:
If anyone read your work and they wanted to tell you what they thought about it, they would! No web service, software, or application is going to take that power away from any individual. If they want you to know, they’ll find a way to let you know. Sometimes, comments aren’t for the conversation starter.
If you don’t like it, hell, make your entries private then.
Louis Gray does it again with “Should Fractured Feed Reader Comments Raise Blog Owners’ Ire?“
LOVED IT? SHARE IT!:
A little riled up over this, are we? :)
I totally agree.
After my previous post about it and after reading what others have to say
about the situation, the sense of entitled for conversations is just seeming
more and more idiotic. I'd rather have the conversation spread everywhere
whether I know it or not, because eventually what someone wants us to know,
will be known and we're not entitled to these conversations. We don't OWN
them, we just started them. There's a huge difference in that last
statement.
The “conversation” is just the beginning… just wait until it all deflagrates into gossip then we all really lose control. There's no spam filtering for gossip.
“This is the internet and quite frankly, EVERYTHING is for the taking, whether you wish it to be or not.”
Wrong. Not only wrong, but harmful because this is the same as saying, “Remove everything you care about from the internet, because some scuzzbucket who wants to make money from your stuff will.” All that will be left then, is content from people who really can give a sh*t about it. Which says a lot about the quality of the content, doesn't it?
It's not the same because I'm not telling you to remove it. I'm simply
trying to make you aware of one of the possible consequences to putting your
stuff on the internet.
How is it not for the taking? You can't put your content on lockdown and the
only way to really do anything remotely close to that is to protect your
entries with privacy features such as requiring a password. Even then, you
have to give someone the code and in doing so, you're opening your stuff to
the limitless possibility of being taken. Just by putting your stuff on the
internet you're doing that. Ergo, whether you want it to be or not, it's
there for the taking. Or let me rephrase that last part:* It's open to the
POSSIBILITY of being taken.*
On the content issue, yes, you do own it, and copyright law is there to back that up. The attitude that it's there, so people will take it and that's all there is to it is EXACTLY why we have the RIAA so far up our butts they are peering out from behind our eyeballs. I'm not going to buy into that for one second, whether you are writing for fun or profit, and saying “well, you asked for it by putting it out there where anyone could see it” sounds like what?
As for the conversation end of it, you are right. It's going to be everywhere. But as more and more apps move more and more of the conversation away from the blogs, what point is there in writing the blog? You yourself said you wanted your comments “back” from aggregators only a few posts ago, as well as saying you were here for conversations, not traffic. So which is it? You want the conversation accessible to you or you don't care? You want your comments or you want them fragmented on 45 different sites?
1. if you're going to get all hot and bothered about it let's hear some names. I was following the meme all weekend, and actually, I don't think I heard any bloggers asking out loud to “own” the conversation. What I did see was Scoble kicking off the debate by making it a “no one should own comments” vs. “don't steal my content” — two actually very different things. Everyone came down on the “no one owns comments and conversations”, including myself.
2. If you want attribution for your work — well, that's a level of control. What Shyfter did was fairly benign in the larger scheme of things. But if you don't want your content being used by sploggers and if you don't want people remixing and repurposing yoru content and then *renaming* the author, then yes — you're actually for some level of control by an author over where and how their content gets treated.
Do you think the answer then is by making all of your content private? If everything is for the taking, do you think that your attribution is one of those things? How about your good name — if people decide to collect your work with someone else's you despise?
Some food for thought on an otherwise quiet Sunday night. :P
Cheers
tony @ dji.
You're not asking for it by putting it out there, but it's one of the
possible consequences. That's all I'm saying. It's a possible consequence
that bloggers will have to deal with.
I do care and I would like them to be accessible to me, but as I stated to
Sarah Perez I'm realizing that if I can't have my cake and eat it too, I'm
willing to accept that and I appreciate those places that at least provide a
link back to the original content.
They didn't ask to own the conversation, but it's how it can come across to
a reader. That was my *interpretation* of the articles that I've read
concerning the situation.
You do have a point, but you're playing devil's advocate lol and it's just
another side to the conversation. Our points are both valid and invalid,
depends on who's reading it. But thank you for the food for thought! I do
appreciate it and it definitely is something to consider. Maybe I'll make a
second post later this week.
My position has been made in quite a few places already, so folks know where I stand. But you know what types of parallel conversations do drive me a bit nuts? It's when they're behind password-protected forums, where I see the traffic, know they're talking about my post, but I can't even search the forum without a login and password, which sometimes isn't available. That's a minor, one person complaint-fest that wouldn't likely draw the attention this one did.
That would probably drive me nuts too. At least other conversations are
public and more accessible.
the “conversation” isn't even valuable until it has move on just like money is worthless until you actually exchange it for something, and the people who Make the money do not get to use it all- and by make I Mean produce the artifact which is exchanged.
the “conversation” isn't even valuable until it has move on just like money is worthless until you actually exchange it for something, and the people who Make the money do not get to use it all- and by make I Mean produce the artifact which is exchanged.
the “conversation” isn't even valuable until it has move on just like money is worthless until you actually exchange it for something, and the people who Make the money do not get to use it all- and by make I Mean produce the artifact which is exchanged.