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Kill the bastard! 
        Where's my rope!
                Aren't you the guy that stole my Speed Racer collection 
                when I was just a lil un'?

Of course I disagree with most of what you are saying. Yes we all get code
to build upon, but there are places that offer it for free. The cutting and
pasting of Java scripts and so on are well documented in the halls of
designer central. But does this mean that all Internet intellectual content
is open for a frickin' free for all? I think not. That to me is like saying
because a girl flirts with you she's open game to ravage.

Although the lines of influence and outright banditry are somewhat blurred
on the net, we who truly would like to see this wonderful thing called the
Internet continue to be a blessing to many, must take the high road. The
money saved on a project by stealing can never buy back one's good name.

While I was over seas during desert storm I was in an environment where
there were few rules and one could potentially get away with whatever they
wanted to, and some did. But I also witnessed that they and everyone who
stood by had to pay the reaper at some point.

There are proper ways of building upon and older project. Projects started
by a previous employee are typically owned by the company that employed
them. If not then the previous owner can come back at any time and
dismantle all that was built upon what he or she accomplished with just a
lil' law suit. That simply isn't good business sense. As a matter of fact
it's downright stupid. 

In short I would motivate the fence sitters to police themselves and aspire
to be a part of something bigger than oneself. 

OK, that was enough heavy thinking for me. I'mma get a beer.

Steve S.

At 05:07 PM 2/18/00 -0500, you wrote:
>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
>
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