Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["j. alfred prufrock" <ifoufo AT yahoo.com>]

Steven Champeon wrote:
> Yep. It's extremely common.

i'm ill-advised to make the following long-winded comments. i don't even
know most of whom i address here. please indulge me this obvious
mistake.

i think the street ethics of the net community at large encourage
copying.

when people learn to program or design pages, what are they told? "find
some well written source and look at it to see how well written source
is put together." most web humor consists of detourning already existing
web material. material on the web is easily copied, and ease is a form
of encouragement. the open source movement actively promotes giving your
work away. in large software companies, does a large project ever start
from ground zero? no, we're made to take the last project and see what
we can cannibalize out of it to save time, even if it sucks or the
people on the last project were laid off. then there's the formalized
push, however possibly misguided, for 'reusable' software components.
how many people work for a company where -every- piece of software
you've been given to use, or asked to use, has been properly paid for
and licensed for every person or machine that uses it? i'm sure there's
at least a couple. in the world.

the net community at large comes from a position of never having to do
anything the hard way. most of computer science, like any technology,
comes from a position of building everything off the previous work of
others, and paying very little to none for it. we might have a big
investment. but our big investments might also represent only a fraction
of what we leverage or capitalize upon.

for every person who's mad that their web site was copied, there are
four or five folks who believe that's just the freedom afforded by the
web. open source encourages that kind of thinking. "the best things are
free" morphs into "everything should be free."

not to mention, i'm going way out on a limb to say, most web designers
would be very hard pressed to demonstrate the actual originality of
their work. they mostly use pretty standard coding structures.  yep,
there's a menu frame off to the side of every product site that has at
least one link saying something like "purchase now!" they mostly scan
visual material they didn't create themselves. they mostly use pretty
standard image manipulation and presentation tools that create the same
textures and treatments from one designer's site to another. most of the
'content' or rather -ad copy-, reads like the reconstituted blather from
any number of lifestyle magazines. "we are the premier provider of
toilet plungers in the industry. our commitment to excellence is
unrivaled. our people strive for a better community and a better
tomorrow. we pick up trash on hwy 55 every sunday. catch us on the warp
tour. view our prospectus. business projections are conjecture only and
not necessarily reflective of individual return on investment. rock on
with our kewl mountain bike pics. sponsored by the marlboro man and the
committee for longer hours and lower wages. click here to feedback."

very few people develop their own shopping cart functions, or credit
card acceptance, or back end processes, and those that do resell them to
those who call themselves content providers, even those these features
are the meat of whatever content the consumer perceives. how much
proprietary content is served up by apache? those who believe they're
all that original might go stand over with the inventor of the internet,
al gore. this doesn't encourage a lot of respect for 'original' work.
especially with amazon out there trying to prevent anyone from
constructing -any- sort of single click purchasing, simply because they
did it first.

i'm not saying a particular view is right or wrong here, or that none of
my analogies are without holes big enough through which to drive a
truck, so please save your slings and arrows. yes, there's some fuzzy,
imaginary, line of fragile consensus somewhere between influence and
byte for byte copying. i'm just saying, a strong defense of intellectual
property is sort of contrary to the general vibe of the web, and may
even be antisocial. i believe the prevailing social winds whisper that
intellect is the property of humanity, or at least of those whom may
afford a computer and internet connection, and that attempts to
proprietize intellect are the true crimes.

i'm sure think clashes over this issue will become more intense as the
web continues to become more commercialized and govern-mentalized. i
think there's a tough row to hoe when any monkey with the privilege of
capital to establish a presence can do web content. face it, however
much effort it takes, it's -rote- effort. it takes only -little- more
talent to create web content than to copy it. personally, i'm amazed i
can get paid to generate web content. and we all remember the early days
when every other hot shot designer charged ten grand to create a site
we'd all consider laughably mundane today. even further, we monkeys
don't have effective measures to prevent our presence from being
exploited in ways we don't intend. if you insist on living in a house
with no locks, no cop is going to be all that enthusiastic about hunting
down your missing tv. when we can figure out how to lock our doors,
well, then we will have done something fairly original.

i'm sure this screed will not make me any more popular. try to overlook
this glaring character flaw of mine. i realize this might be offensive
and i just mean to be frank, not neglectful of feelings and emotions. i
was just mildly shocked by the virulence of the reaction to this latest
site-jacking. i make my living through both web content and web-enabled
services. if i place material on the web, i just assume it will be
copied by whomever, and that efforts to prevent or recuperate such are
more trouble than worth. i think this sort of thing is well worth
chatting about, simply because it's interesting to me. i wouldn't trust
a vote from a group of people who hadn't chatted a lot about it, and
maybe not even then, depending on how i felt about the chat. some i'm
glad we're chatting about it.

chris calloway, inventor of helvetica